Ottsworld Travel Experiences » animals

Mad Hatters – The Kentucky Derby

admin — Tue, 04 May 2010 04:52:10 +0000

Kentucky Derby Spectators - Like no other!

Where am I? From a fashion perspective, it looks like Park Ave., but there are no sky scrapers. A vendor walks by with 3 dozen mint juleps in his ‘Ice Box’ crate; I smell an odor of horses and cigars. For one brief day, this town is the queen of the fashion world and the King of the Sports world – ‘Mission Impazible’ achieved. This can only be the Kentucky Derby, one of the greatest sporting events of all times; where Devil Wears Prada meets ‘Devil May Care’.

One of the most fascinating things about the Kentucky Derby isn’t the race itself – but the culture of the Derby. It’s one of the only sporting events in the world in which you put on your best clothes to be a spectator. Think about it, do you see men in football stadiums wearing suits and hats? No. More than likely the only hat they have on their head is the kind that holds two cans of beer and a big straw or one that looks like a cheese wedge.

The Perfect KD Couple

Churchill Downs is filled with fashionable hats, shoes, and dresses. The women are dressed as if they are attending a royal wedding or a ‘Nobel’s Promise’. The men are also dressed in hats and summer suits. When you put those well-dressed men in colorful sear-sucker suits together with the women in wide brimmed hats and 4 inch stilettos, you have the perfect Kentucky Derby couple. Even Michael Kors would be impressed.

Horse Hat

The hats came in all shapes and sizes, all colors, and some even showed ‘Conveyance’ of the person’s love for horses. There were flowers, netting, ribbons, bows, and BIG bows. In my whole life I had never seen so many spectacular hats. Hat prices ranged from thousands of dollars to a handmade craft project (like my own glue gunned hat). An average hat cost around $300 in Kentucky and they all promptly went on a half price ‘Super Saver’ sale the day after the Derby.

All afternoon refined spectators in the stands drink mint juleps, and read the racing programs trying to figure out who will be the ‘Stately Victor’ of the big race. Friends gather and talk between races, and eat their boxed lunches in their boxed seats.

Life in the stands

Life in the Infield

However life in the stands and life in the infield (the center of the track) is like comparing an ’American Lion’ to ‘Dean’s Kitten’ – it is an exercise in contrasts. The infield is where the sloppy, less refined partying happens. The tickets are cheaper and so are the clothes. The stands also have their share of partying, but in a sophisticated manner…until it hits 3PM. Then those refined spectators turn into ‘Homeboy Kris’; rowdy, drunk, and a bit sloppy teetering on 4 inch stilettos!

We arrived at out spectacular box seats in the stands around 11AM amidst very grey skies; we were certainly not ‘Lookin At Lucky’ weather for the day. We came prepared with ponchos and flip flops; still trying to keep our fashion sense by wearing our hats and fancy dresses.

One hour later we found ourselves being pelted with rain and gale force winds. We secured our hats, and dawned our ponchos, but even our rain gear couldn’t stop the miserable weather from getting to us. Hours melted away…and with each hour my hat fell a little more apart. However in this time of sogginess, all I could think about was how Vietnam’s rainy season had prepared me for this; I knew that I would not melt. My hat might melt, but my body wouldn’t!

Skies Begin to Clear

After 7 hrs of battling Mother Nature, it was finally time for race 11 – the reason why we were all here; to see the run for the roses. First, I had to place my bets – should I go with ‘Paddy O’Prada’, ‘Jackson Bend’, ‘Discretely Mine’, or ‘Back Talk’? Of should I put all my money on ‘Line of David’? After all, I have a friend named David. In the end I decided to stick with what I know – travel. I cleverly placed my bet for an international theme and chose ‘Dublin’ to win.

By some ‘Awesome Act’ of God…once we all stood up and sang Old Kentucky Home the sun blasted through the clouds, and rays of light shined down upon Churchill Downs. It was as if NBC had paid for this to happen. Or the big rain clouds were simply negotiating by saying ‘Make Music For Me’ and we will cooperate.

And they were off….

Super Saver Wins!

The crowd came alive jumping up and down as if ‘Sydney’s Candy’ were being thrown into a crowd of children! There were screams, hands waving, jumping, and even some praying.

In the end…my travel bet didn’t pay off. However, my trip to the derby did pay off big – mainly in the form of photography.

*if you haven’t figured it out by now – the bolded names are the 20 horses that ran in the Kentucky Derby!

Photography from the Derby:

Photo of the Week – Mongolia

admin — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 05:30:18 +0000

Gobi Desert Trifecta

I am in Louisville this weekend for the Kentucky Derby so thought I would choose one of my favorite horse photos from Mongolia – the land where horses roam free. We were driving through the Gobi Desert when we came across a pack of horses near a well. The wind howled across the desert as we got out of the car and intermingled with them. They seemed tame, but I know they yearned to run.

View more Mongolia Photography

View more travel photography at Photo Friday on Briefcase to Backpack

Kathmandu Photography – Pigeons

admin — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 12:18:14 +0000

Venice thinks that it has the corner on the market when it comes to pigeons, but don’t discount Kathmandu’s pigeon population! They were everywhere, intermingled with each other, people, and of course the holy cows!

A walk to school among the pigeons

Coming in for landing

Diversification - In Dubar Square the pigeons and cows intermingle happily

Photo of the Week – Mongolia

admin — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 06:13:38 +0000

Mongolia Herds

Gobi Desert – Mongolia

Grazing Goats

I chose this photo this week in order to bring more visibility to the current state of emergency in Mongolia. There are a lot of weather disasters happening around the globe right now, and Mongolia is no exception. The extreme cold weather has been the cause of death to 1.7 million heads of livestock. Herding in Mongolia is the main way of life. In a country where life is already difficult, this blow is crippling. Livestock is the main source of food and business for most of the 2.6 million Mongolians.

Some herders have lost more 50% of their livestock. This saddens me greatly because I stayed with herder families in the Gobi Desert, learning their way of life was a highlight to me. My interaction with these families made my trip to Mongolia a moving experience for me.

Hopefully as the summer months arrive, the Gobi will be a scene like this photo once again. Teeming with life and color, and never-ending landscape.

Read more about the current Mongolian Weather Crisis , Mongolia’s Severe Weather Threatens Lives

Read about my experience living with Herders in Mongolia

See more Mongolia Photography

See more Photo Friday pics at DeliciousBaby.com

A Mouse in My House

admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 06:50:14 +0000

Ledar, Nepal - Annapurna Circuit

Tiger Balm Tales vol. 11

Day 10 – A Mouse in My House

After 10 days of decreasing temperatures and increasing wind my body is rebelling. My lips have become as dry as the Gobi Desert , my nasal passages feel like hard booger craters have invaded it, and my hands are so dry they look like they belong to a 60 yr. old; the elements most definitely do have an effect on your body.
We hiked slowly from Gunsang to Ledar today. We saw ice for the first time on the trail. We saw no trees. We breathed harder than we had the day before. Now we are holed up in the 1 of 3 guest houses in the encampment of Ledar waiting; waiting for our body to acclimate a little more.

Donkey Aroma

During one of our trekking breaks today our guide, Bishnu, said “Ohhhhh, I’m smelling like a donkey! I can’t wait for a shower.” Not only did the donkey reference make me laugh, but it also made me realize that I’ve now been wearing the same pants for 10 days, the same shirt for 9 days, the same jog bra for 9 days, the same socks for 4 days; this is beyond donkey filth! On top of the filth, everything smells like Tiger Balm! However, it’s a part of trekking for 21 days. I do wonder at times if these clothes will ever be clean again, or should I burn them for warmth at high camp? I guess the good news is that everyone smells equally badly; like a pack of donkeys.

Even more troubling that my physical rebellion or my odor, is my mental rebellion. After 10 days I’m annoyed. The sunroom in our guesthouse is buzzing with various conversations I find hard to ignore. I don’t understand why trekkers only like to share bad stories about trekking; trekkers who have disappeared, ones who were robbed, ones who die from AMS. This is seriously annoying conversation. Why isn’t anyone telling any good heartwarming stories – the ones about people making it? Or is it that people don’t ever make it…no…that’s just my mind playing stupid tricks on me – right?

All of this negative talk is making me feel ill.

Ledar Guesthouse View

However I also knew why I was annoyed and feeling crappy. Of all days, at all times – I got my period today. So not only was I exhausted, cold and sore – but I also had cramps. Timing is everything. Even though this is a subject that my dad and I had never discussed in my lifetime (my family rarely discusses anything personal), I decided what the hell, I’m an adult and we are trekking partners – so I mentioned to him that I wasn’t feeling well because I had my period. His reply, “Well, at least you’re not pregnant.”

Wait a minute…was this my dad? My dad making a very funny joke about a subject that we had never talked about before? I was in shock! I felt as if I had entered the Father Knows Best twilight zone. This is why I love traveling with my dad, I get these glimpses of him that I never had exposure to before. Previously I only had exposure to the ‘father figure’, not the man. These are the memories that will be burned in my brain.

Dad and I started studying our next 2 trekking days on our map; in 2 days we’ll be climbing higher than either of us ever have climbed before. As we looked at the calendar we realized that we’ll cross the pass on Oct. 30th. We both realized what that meant; Oct. 30th was a special date to our family. My father’s mother (my Grandma Ott) who just recently passed away last Febuary at 97 years old, would have been 98 years old on Oct. 30th. We were going to cross the pass on her birthday. We didn’t plan this – it just happened thanks to our slow speed and my illness ; but it was clearly meant to be.

That afternoon as I sat and tried to journal, trying not to listen to the horror stories around me. I looked over at my dad, he seemed just fine. In fact, he was great. He didn’t seem worried or annoyed like me. Instead he seemed really happy. I started to think about how far we’ve come. In all of that distance, I never saw anyone near his age range attempting what he is attempting. I’m sure there’s been plenty of people over 73 years old get over Thorang La Pass, but they are not my dad, and that’s who I care about now.

Dad taking a break

We are a good father-daughter team. We lean on each other and provide encouragement when we need to. I realize this is the longest time we’ve ever spent together alone. In fact, this is the longest time he’s been away from my mom since they’ve been married 50 years. Surprisingly this is all going really well. I think the best thing about growing older is that your relationship with your parents change from inequal to equal….and I suppose eventually that will change again. But I’ve decided that instead of being annoyed with everything, I’ll enjoy this moment. Sure, I’ll still worry about our ability to get over the pass as a team. But I will appreciate every possible moment of this teamwork.

Our teamwork was never appreciated more than that night when we went back to our cold, dark room to sleep. I entered the room with my headlamp providing a narrow beam of light cutting thru the darkness. I went to put my journal on my bed and that’s when I saw it – two beady eyes staring back at me. A little mouse was scurrying around on my bed as if it were his. I scared the shit out of it; it scared the shit out of me. Amazingly I turned around to my dad who was closing the door to the room and said in a stifled, yet startled tone, “There’s a mouse on my bed.” With precision teamwork and two headlamps we were able to chase the outnumbered mouse off my bed and out the door. I slammed the door shut…whew.

Yet in reality I knew the mouse on my bed had scarred me mentally; this would be a worse than usual night of sleep at altitude. After all, it didn’t take me long to realize that the mouse got in our room when the door was shut; we were in its house. I pulled my sleeping bag string tighter so that only my eyes could peer out; attempting to shut out any entrance for the pesky mouse. One good thing about my excessive worrying about the mouse was that I was no longer worrying about crossing the pass!

Video of Trail:

Start the Tiger Balm Tales from the Beginning!

Vol. 1 – The Begining of a Nepal Trekking Plan
Vol. 2 – Preparing the Parents
Vol. 3 – Annapurna Itinerary
Vol. 4 – Travel Back in Time
Vol. 5 – Breathe Through Your Mouth
Vol. 6 – Road Work Ahead
Vol. 7 – Changing Rhythms on the Annapurna Circuit
Vol. 8 – And on the 7th Day We Rested
Vol. 9 – Paralyzed on the Annapurna Circuit
Vol. 10 – No Room at the Inns

Gobi Desert Landscapes – Mongolia

admin — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 02:17:45 +0000

Mongolian Horizon

“We all live under the same sky but we don’t have the same horizon” – Konrad Adenauer

Isolation
I have been to about 90% of Asia and there’s one things that hold constant among all Asian countries; population density. There are so many people in Asia, it’s mind boggling. This population density contributes to why Asians aren’t as protective of their personal space as westerners, and they don’t like to queue. However when arriving in Mongolia I was stunned at the emptiness. The country of Mongolia has the lowest population density in the world. I had never experience emptiness like this before. We’d drive for 100km in the desert and you wouldn’t see another human being; nor a truck or car or motorcycle. However, we were never really alone as we were surrounded by the animals; camels, horses, goats, sheep, and yaks. We’d see packs of random camels grazing in the seemingly barren desert. I honestly have no idea what they were grazing on!

Kaleidoscope of Colors and Texture
As we left Ulanbatar the terrain changes from rolling green hills with gers puffing out fairy tale smoke to the pebbly brown hills of the Gobi. I saw the last tree I would see in days, and soon the desert colors and landscape seemingly changed as quickly as the turn of a kaleidoscope. I’d look at the jeep window and see a flat, brown rocky landscape. I’d look up again and see mountains in the distance and then the landscape would be greener with little blades of young grass sprouting up from the parched earth. Next my eyes would be greeted with a pebbly landscape that looked steely and gray with no sign of life. Finally I would stare out my window wondering if I had missed us shoot into orbit somehow; it looked as though we had landed on the moon. This unearthly surface was one of my favorite. Strangely the desert was more colorful than I ever would have imagined.

View Mongolian Landscape photography

No Sand in the Desert?
When you think of the desert, you think of sand – right? Not so fast, the Gobi isn’t a sandy desert. In fact, in my 12 days there, I saw very little sand (even though my camera sensor would say otherwise evidenced by all the dust particles on my photos that I had to edit!) Instead there were boulders, rocks, pebbles and dirt.

Uush Sand Dunes

There are some large sand dunes, however you had to travel to find them, they were more or a rarity than the norm. We luckily did travel to the Uush sand dunes; the dunes known for their amazing healing sand (according to the locals who would bury their bodies in it). After a long drive through the flat dusty terrain, we finally saw the dunes raise up out of the nothingness. We climbed to the top of the dune and sat down in the fine sand and took inventory of our surroundings. It was an amazing view from the top; looking down on the flat, hard desert floor. As I looked out into the distance I noticed that the brilliant blue sky disappearing into a brown haze. I asked our local host about the strange sky; a sandstorm he said. I’ve been in a lot of weather conditions all over the world, but never a sandstorm. I decided to take on the emotion of our host and stay calm and watch it get closer and closer as our sun disappeared and the wind picked up. Seemingly at the last minute he looked at us and said “We go now”, and we all proceeded to race down the huge dune to safety! It was invigorating as we ran into the ger and the sand started whistling past the door and we all took a safe cover. The desert was full of surprises!

Mongolian Safari

Desert Safari
I felt as if we were on safari at times; I had memory flashbacks to my time in Kenya, driving a bumpy jeep through barren land in search of animals. In the Gobi, it seemed as if the animals would come look at us, and we in turn would look at them as if the idea of a shared heartbeat in this empty landscape drew us together. At one point we came over a small rise in the landscape and suddenly saw a herd of lightening fast Ibex dart across the vast desert. I yelped in delight as if I had just seen a cheetah! The only thing you could see was little puffs of dust following their trails as they disappeared out of sight as fast they came into our sight. In addition to the unique Ibex sighting, there was another unusual animal in the desert; the camel. It’s important to note that camels in the Gobi desert are actually unique, I was told the Gobi is the only place you’ll find two hump camels in the world which makes them even rarer than elephants!

Nothing survives here!

The Desert Effect
As if I were on a movie set, we drive and bump our way past rotting animal carcasses, skulls, and various bones scattered on the desert floor. The bones would be so white from the sun that they seemed unreal. In fact, my first reaction to going by what looked to be a yak skull was ‘Is that for real?” As if I thought some movie director had decided to put a fake skull out in the middle of nowhere to create a ‘desert effect’. These are the times when realize that maybe there has been too much television influence on my life and not enough real life experiences! Real life in the desert is hard; especially for the animals. These were the animals that didn’t make it for one reason or another. But you can be sure that in the great ‘circle of life’ the other animals benefited from the death as evidenced by the cleanly picked skeletons. One animal’s death was another’s feast.

A few lone trees were a pleasant surprise

Mirage of Trees
After driving for miles and miles towards the sand dunes, I saw something off in the distance. The little black formations were unusual, but I assumed they were camels or horses milling together in solidarity against the elements. I kept my eye on the dark odd-shaped spots as we continued to drive closer to them. I rubbed my eyes, still fixated on the spots, realizing that these weren’t animals, nor were they people; they were trees. A strange little clump of trees had sprung up out of the dry, cracked desert floor! I wondered if I was seeing things; was this indeed a mirage? I had gone days without seeing trees and my brain was surprised to see this one time familiar image again. The unexplainable bunch of hearty trees appeared to be growing next to a dried out river bed; I imagined these tree roots sucking every last ounce of water out of the river until it was gone and only a slurping sound remained; certainly the heat was getting to me!

Distant Storms

Stormy Weather

One great thing about a desert is that you can see for miles and miles; the horizon surrounding you like a halo. However, sometime that pure horizon would be disrupted by a strange site; rain. Never once did it rain on us, however it seemed to be quite often raining around us. I felt like we existed with a giant forcefield around us ensuring the rain clouds stayed always in the distance. However, this rain forcefield did provide many fabulous opportunities to watch as the storm took on a life of its own and slowly moved across the desert gathering darkness and power.

Endless Sky
I stared out the window trying to figure out why the Mongolian sky seemed so different; unique and larger than life. After much thought I came to the conclusion that in NYC or Saigon or most of the places I’ve ever lived, you have to look up to see the sky. You have to make a special effort to view it as it’s normally such a small percentage of our overall view. However in the flat, treeless Gobi, the sky was now about 70% of my view and it was straight in front of me. I felt as if I were in one of those round-about theatres where everywhere you looked was clouds. When the sky is constantly within your line of sight, it takes on this vastness that you could feel; and this is what I’ll remember most about the Mongolian landscape.

Video of the Week – August 25, 2009

admin — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 12:30:39 +0000

To Queue or not to Queue…a heated subject in Asia!

While in Mongolia I was able to test a theory of mine:

Queues don’t exist in Asia

I thought I was on the right track to proving it when I arrived at the Ulanbatar airport and saw the immigration ‘free for all’. A small room with a hundred or so people just in mass pushing their way up front with no regard to queuing. The few tourists, including myself, just sat there dumbfounded, but did our best to push our way towards the immigration desk.

However while driving through the Gobi Desert, my theory was proven wrong! In a desolate land where there are few humans, the animals have seemed to figured out the benefits of queuing!
Enjoy!

Transportation – Getting from Ger to Ger

admin — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 04:37:48 +0000

Travel in the Gobi

During my Gobi Desert travels I experienced all sorts transportation; some more enjoyable than others. True to the Ger to Ger vision, we mainly traveled as the locals did unless we had really far distances to cover. I found the whole experience fascinating as some of the old nomadic ways of travel had evolved into more modern nomadic travel.

The Mongolian Super Highway

Bus:
As soon as we traveled 35 minutes outside of Ulanbatar, the pavement disappeared and there was nothing but dirt for the next 12 days. I was honestly surprised and a bit scared when I realized this was it – the end of infrastructure. The little bubble of infrastructure around Ulanbatar was so small, what in the world was I in for now? The bus now traveled at peak speeds along the Mongolian dirt super hi-way…a bunch of tracks branching off going every which way like a maze.

I was never really sure which one the driver would follow and why, but I had a fun time occupying my mind trying to figure out the logic in a presumably illogical path. This was a 6 ½ hour ride to Mondolgovi and the locals seemed to be unphased

ZZZZZzz

by the constant bumps and sways on the uneven ‘hi-way’. In fact, within about 20 minutes the whole bus seemed to be sleeping but us! The bus made one stop in a small encampment where everyone piled off the bus and went out into the barren desert and relieved their bladders. This was my first exposure to the Mongolian ‘openess’ (aka kiss privacy goodbye). Let me remind you, we were in the desert; there were no trees, no big rocks, no hills – nowhere to hide. I watched the lineup of women about 40 ft. away from the bus squatting and peeing in plain sight and thought about how quickly I would have to shed my own culture to survive.

Horses rest in the sun - no water here!

Horse:
There’s something notably different about Mongolian horses; unlike the people, they are small. They actually look like the size of ponies. Don’t be fooled by their size though because like everything in Mongolia, they are strong. We did a 15k horse journey one day in order to arrive at our next ger and it was full of surprises. To begin with, I was surprised at how small and uncomfortable the saddle was. Mongolians use wooden saddles and like their horses, the saddles are also miniature. As we took off into the vast Gobi Desert waving goodbye to our last hosts I looked at what was ahead of me – absolutely nothing. Just me, my travel partners, and our Mongolian host trotting through miles and miles of nothing. The only shade we had was provided by the large clouds that would periodically pass overhead. Riding in these extreme nothingness conditions felt surreal; was I really here, or was I dreaming this? Once again, a moment where I had to pinch myself.

Modern Nomad

Motorcycle:
I didn’t actually ride a motorcycle, however my stuff was frequently transported by motorcycle. In fact, the motorcycle was the modern Mongolian herder’s horse. Many times off in the distance I would see a herd of animals be rounded up by their herder…on a motorcycle. I wondered if John Wayne were still alive and making movies, would he be on a motorcycle now? Considering the massive distances families sometimes had to travel to get to their ‘neighbors’ or a town, I actually think that having motorcycles is quite a good idea for them.

The projectile camel!

Camel/Horse Cart:
Many times the herders would throw all of our bags onto a old wooden cart, with a blanket and place a camel or horse at the front and off we went to the next ger. I actually preferred this mode of travel as it was more comfortable than the wooden horse saddle and I was able to take pictures at the same time as we slowly rode across the desert. However, I’ve never been a huge fan of camels and this trip solidified that feeling. One of the camels we took wasn’t too terribly happy with his duty and decided to ‘doody’ all over our cart and us…projectile camel shit. Needless to say, we walked the rest of the way while the camel and our hosts slowly rode along without us! I’m positive that this was one of these cultural divides as we walked the remaining 6k and the Mongolians continued to ride on the cart with our luggage wondering why we didn’t find the shit experience as funny as they did.

Desert Mechanic

Jeep:
Many times we had to cover some pretty massive distances and that’s when we went modern…by Jeep. However, before you get the image of LandRovers or Hummers in your head…let me remind you where we were…Mongolia. We were transported by Russian Jeep; old, heavy resembling a tank and riding like one too. Many of the jeeps we rode in had padding on the ceiling, for good reason. The jeep rides were long and hard, bumpy, hot, and dirty; but it was better than the camel shit! Actually, we had a great time in the Jeep. Our driver, Shat (short for Shatarbaatar) was the best. He entertained us by constantly saying he was sorry when he went over a bump that sent us airborne (which was a frequent occurrence), he played Mongolian music, and best of all he would stop whenever I wanted a picture or video!

His English was actually better than most of the people we encountered, plus he had a dictionary in his visor always ready at our disposal. We finished our trip by driving 400 km with Shat through the

Shat, Me, and Natalie take a rest from the bumpy ride

Gobi back to Ulanbatar; the scenery was stunning. However the bone jarring ride was hell for 10 hours – yes, 10 hours. It felt as if I was on an old wooden roller coaster all day; it was too much of a good thing! This was some of the most difficult and exhausting travel I had ever done; my whole body ached.

Pit Crew:
I would be amiss if I didn’t mention the Mongolians amazing mechanical aptitude. In every form of transportation I mentioned we had a mechanical glitch at some point or another (I’m counting the camel shit as a glitch). I’ve decided that if I ever become a race car driver, I’m hiring Mongolians for my pit crew; I’ve never seen people change a tire so fast! In our trip – we had 4 flat tires; 2 the first day within 30 minutes of each other! One of our flat tires was actually on the motorcycle transporting our bags and we were on horseback. Here we were, stuck in the desert as our Mongolian hosts did something I’ve never seen before;

Fixing a flat tire with string

they fixed a flat tire with a piece of shoestring. They found the hole and wound the string so tight around it that it could hold air again. It was a temporary fix, but it allowed us to get back on our horses and be on our way. At one point on our way back to Ulanbatar we had mechanical trouble and Shat pulled out this tray of nuts and bolts, disappeared under the hood, and soon we were back on the road. Plus, I loved the fact that Shat carried a roll of duck tape on his gear shift…you never know when you might need to tape the engine together! The great thing about the breakdowns and flat tires is that is gave us another opportunity to get out and survey our surroundings; as one of my favorite songs says, “There’s beauty in the breakdown.”

Navigation:
In a land with no roads, signs, landmarks or even a tree I was amazed that we weren’t wandering aimlessly in the desert; miraculousy our host always found our destination. Much like Elmer Fudd hunts for wabbits, we had to hunt for 2 tire tracks going in a direction that was relatively correct (this part was determined by the sun and shadows I believe!) I was fascinated with the jeep navigation; we’d be going for 30 km following 2 tire tracks and then we’d suddenly lose them.

Watch Out! For What?

We’d zig zag around the desert aimlessly looking for another set to follow. During this time I was normally doing a mental checklist of how much water and food I had with me and if I knew any survival skills for surviving in the desert. After doing this day after day, I have to admit that I actually got pretty good at finding tracks and pointing them out occasionally to try to help out Shat! One of the funiest moments was coming across this one sign in the desert. For 10 days we hadn’t seen a single sign until this exclamation point – I was so tickled by it that I made Shat stop so I could take a picture; he of course thought I was crazy.

Whichever way your cross the desert; camel, horse, by foot, cart, motorcycle, bus, or jeep I can guarantee you it will be an adventure you’ll never forget!

Yet another flat tire

Comfortable? No, not really!

The ‘D’ Word

admin — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:20:38 +0000

No Rice for You!

I started my morning screaming at people today. Granted I’m not a morning person, that’s no secret, but I don’t normally scream at people. Sure, I think it – but it seldom comes out.

Imagine this scenario multiplied times 15!

“Get off the f’ing sidewalk!!” I believe is what escaped my lips with some really pissed-off arm gestures accompanying the words. This performance was directed at the 15 motorbikes barreling down the sidewalk towards me swerving as they were surprised to find someone actually WALKING, let along RUNNING, on the sidewalk. The traffic was so packed that everyone just thinks the sidewalks are meant as an overflow ‘lane’ for the congested streets. Absolutely nothing is sacred in this place.

This is just one of the many frustrations I experience daily. However, lately I’ve been trying to overcome another frustration; discrimination.

I try my best to do the impossible here in HCMC, go running outdoors. If any of you have been here, then you may know what a insane activity this is. I would be much safer skydiving or motorcycle jumping 10 beat up cars…while engulfed in flames. However I’m a runner, and I won’t give up that persona without a fight. Since moving to Asia, I’ve given up the persona of ‘corporate executive’, ‘fashionable’, ‘sex in the city character’, and ‘good party host’; but I won’t give up ‘runner’. No matter how hot and sticky it gets, no matter how bad the pollution is, no matter how dangerous the sidewalks are; I have to keep running, even if it is only 3 miles 3 times a week.

I go to the zoo to run in the mornings as long as it’s before 8AM. After 8AM furgetaboutit, too hot. I go to the zoo because it is the only place I can run where it’s safe outdoors. There are no cars or motorbikes, and there are actual trees offering a bit of relief from the scorching sun. The only problem is that it’s small – really small – so I have to run the same boring loop every 7 minutes. Describing it as ‘boring’ may be a little rough, after all I do get to see elephants, zebras, giraffes, ostriches, lions, and buffalo (the Asian kind) every loop.

Some of the only trees in HCMC!

When I first found the zoo, I was excited because I learned that if you arrived before 7AM when they open, you could simply go in and exercise. There were tons of local Vietnamese people playing badminton, doing Tai Chi, stretching, doing arm circles, and walking in the park. It was full of life! However as I entered the park surrounded by the Vietnamese people pouring in the front gate, I was stopped.

“What Mr. Officer? What did I do wrong? I’m just going running.”

After much broken English conversation I realized that I couldn’t go in because I was white. Holy shit, this was a switch-a-roo; I was being discriminated against. Sure, I was used to salary discrimination, making less than men; but I was certainly not used to being discriminated against for the color of my skin and more specifically, my culture.

They refused to let me in without a ticket. After much argument that went nowhere besides the guy still saying to me ‘have ticket!” I finally decided – fine, I will buy the damn ticket. I walk back out parting the sea of locals walking into the park and I go to the ticket booth.

It’s not open.

Ticket Booth...the ladies there know me by name now.

It’s impossible for me to buy a ticket because they don’t open until 7AM. I go back to the guard. He once again says “have ticket!”, I try to say to him “ticket no open!” This goes nowhere…I leave in a giant huff and go risk my life running on the sidewalks around the motorbikes and people eating soup (breakfast) on the sidewalk.

As I ran that morning, I was furious. I started to wonder why I was so mad about the episode. Honestly it shouldn’t be surprising that I was being discriminated against. After all, the market charges me 15,000 dong for a mango, while I watch the local ladies pay 10,000 Dong. This is a fact of life in Asia. People see your skin and immediately rip you off.

Motorbike taxis look at me and start at 40,000 dong for a ride to work. I look at them in disgust and say slowly in hopes they will understand me “I live here.” Pause for an effect and then say “I pay 15,000 Dong”. They look at me, see I’m very serious and then give me a ride to work for 15,000 Dong. The locals pay about 5000 Dong for motorbike taxis for the same distance. There’s a tourist price, a white price, and a local price. It never fails – I always have to go through the tourist price first, then I have to be ok with the white price.

Now – back to why is this so infuriating to me? Some days I can brush it off, but many days the blatancy of the discrimination eats through my soul like acid through metal. I have come to realize that this action of discrimination is really a major cultural divide among Americans and the Eastern world. I think (hope) that most Americans believe in equal rights. Not just believe, but it’s deeply woven into our psyche and culture. This is what my generation and generations before have spent their lives fighting for. Equality is core value for us. Since I was born in 1970, most of the civil rights movement had worked itself out by then, so the concept of equality was a foundation in which other values were built for me.

Having to accept discrimination is a chore every day. But I do accept it. I am a visitor in this country and I have to remember that. I have to take off my American ‘hat’ and just try to accept. (I’m gritting my teeth as I write this!). So now I go running at the zoo at 7AM and pay my 8000 Dong (50 cents) to get in to the empty zoo and run multiple loops melting in sweat as if I were the Wicked Witch of the West.

Sometimes I do try to outsmart the system and send a Vietnamese friend out to do the market shopping. She pays at least half of what I would have to pay for the exact same stuff. I give her a bit of a tip, and we all win. Ah…the little victories.

Now if I could just get the people to not drive on the sidewalks!

Sidewalk crasher!

You will never believe it…

admin — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:52:25 +0000

These dogs are amateurs!

Note to self…
Always, always, always take a camera with you when you walk out the door. It is a certainly that you will wish you had it at some point in the journey outside my apartment!!

Why do I have to learn this lesson over and over again? Today was the final straw…I had this “I can’t believe that I just witnessed this” moment. One that you, my loyal blog readers deserved to see as you would have never imagined it in your wildest dreams.

I was on the back of my motorbike taxi holding on for dear life, weaving in and out of traffic, threading the needle between buses and the sidewalk, and all of a sudden I saw it.

A dog riding a motorbike.

I’m not joking. This little dog stood about 1 ½ feet high, and was perched on the back of the motorbike behind his owner. His owner drove down the street weaving in and out of traffic, and the pooch stood there on all fours, stoic, as if it were a hood ornament, looking around at the other commuters as if it was as normal as dogs playing poker.

You can carry anything on a motorbike

Now I’ve seen a lot of crazy things carried on motorbikes, but this took the cake. When I first laid eyes on the dog standing on the seat, I let out a loud laugh. It was so loud that it startled my motorbike driver! I pointed at the dog and said, I don’t have a camera!!! He kindly navigated his way next to the dog and owner and we drove along side it for a while and I just stared in amazement.

Why, why, why did I get the cheap cell phone without a camera??

Lesson learned….my point and shoot is going everywhere with me from now on.

For my readers…sorry you had to miss the visual on this, but trust me…it was something that could only be seen as normal in Vietnam.

Learning How to Remove Leaches

admin — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 16:46:07 +0000

Dhal Bhat Days – Vol 3
8/31/08

Stairway

Snapshots from this day of the journey can be found here!

Photography from Nepalese Villages – click here!

Today I arrived at the village of Puma where I will be staying for 2 weeks. It’s pretty much what I thought it would be in my ‘prepare for the worst’ expectations. Yet I don’t know that one can ever be prepared to pull big leaches off their body.

Khadgo leading me to Puma

We got up early in Besisharha And Khadgo went to inquire about taking a Jeep to the village of Puma – up in the mountains about 1 hour away by Jeep. “The road to Puma is very poor.” This is what Khadgo told me, and he’s Nepalese; when a Nepalese person says something is bad – then it is worse than bad in my mind. We wouldn’t even call it a drivable road in America. With all of the mud slides and rain from the previous day, he wasn’t sure if the Jeep could even make it through. He came back to me while I was eating breakfast and broke the news to me – the Jeeps can’t make it through, we would have to hike to Puma. This was ok with me for three reasons; I would have been terrified of being a passenger anyway as the ‘road’ was steep and narrow, I thought the exercise would be good for me as I love to trek, and I wasn’t in any hurry to arrive at the village due to all of my fears about being there anyway.

Unfortunately, if I had known this, I might have packed a little differently…like much, much lighter! I took my big pack and Khadgo took my other two packs with computer and camera and we took off. I loved the trekking. It was definitely challenging as I’ve never had to carry a pack that big while trekking before. Normally porters carry the bags, but I was my own porter today.

The home of my hosts in Puma

It took us 3 ½ hours to make it up the mountain to the Puma village. The last part of the hike we went through muddy/watery rice fields as a ‘short cut’. That is when it happened…the leaches. I of course didn’t know this until I took off my sandals after we arrived at my guest house. I had 3 big leaches and 2 small ones on my feet. I pretty much freaked out. They told me that there could be leaches here, and I’ve had them before, but they’ve been small, not like these big ones that were happily attached to me. I tried to stay calm, but I’m sure that the panic on my face was a give away that this is something that didn’t happen regularly in NYC to me. In NYC I just go for pedicures, the little pedicure ladies are the only ones that touch my feet – not leaches.

Khadgo quickly took his chewing tobacco (unused) and put it on the leaches and then he pulled them off. See, I learned something today – if you want to remove a leach, have chewing tobacco, they come off much easier and less painfully than pulling them off. Apparently salt and lemon also work. Tuck that info in your survival handbook just in case you find yourself in a similar situation. After they were pulled off blood started gushing everywhere…those little suckers work fast. Seriously, I’ve never had something bleed so much before. It’s worse than nicking yourself shaving – it’s like they drill into a vein or something! We cleaned it off with water that is undrinkable for me, and the situation was handled.

The walk to my outhouse

The house that I was staying in was big in village terms. But for those of you out there reading this, it wouldn’t be a house to you, so don’t get some vision that it has 2 bathrooms, carpeting, and a living room. Instead it is a concrete/mud structure with a porch that you sit on, an outdoor fire pit and an indoor fire pit (2 kitchens…practically a mansion) and an upstairs room where the family sleeps. It has electricity, but no plumbing. The women fetch water from the many waterfalls around the village. The ‘bathroom’ is an outhouse with a squat toilet and a bucket of water. Overall, there were no big surprises to me, until I went into the outhouse and saw the HUGE spider that is also in the outhouse. There’s nothing better than doing your business in the dark a huge spider to jump on you. Can I just give up now?

Trust me – I did consider giving up…but there was no real way to do that either…so I had to survive and go on.

My room above the buffalos

My room is not in the main house, in fact I have a little room all to myself just off of the house; over the cow stable. Can you imagine the smell? It also has a host of spiders in it, after all, it is a barn. I’ve tried my best to make peace with all of the spiders; they have their space and I have mine. Hopefully we won’t intrude on each others space; .at least I pray that’s the case. The room isn’t too bad, you get used to the smell and honestly it’s about what I was expecting. Yet when I woke up in the middle of the night and heard the rats, I started wearing ear plugs after that.

What I wasn’t expecting is that there is no one here to speak English with at all. According to my volunteer company, there was supposed to be a man that lived in the village that is to be my ‘contact’. A person that can speak some English and looks in on me, answers questions, is my contact back to the modern world, etc. However, I got here today and we found out that his father-in-law has taken ill so he is away and no one knows when he will be back.

My Spider...I won't miss her...

After depositing me with my ‘host family’ Khadgo had to leave me. So here I am – all alone with no way to communicate. When Khadgo left I had to fight back tears as I really felt like I was being abandoned. Sure the woman and her mother that I would be living with seemed nice for the 5 minutes I spent with them, but they didn’t speak English and I was all alone up here on the hill – 3 ½ hrs from any sort of civilization. I felt like I was about 7 years old again; completely helpless. Before he departed, Khadgo said that if there is an emergency that I can call on the family’s cell phone. I talked myself out of the tears, I had to. My image of myself was coming crashing down, and I couldn’t let it plummet any further; I couldn’t give up, that’s not who I am.

Before Khadgo left, he took me on a quick walk around the village where we went to go see the school. The school is very minimal and there are about 20 children in all. The principle at the school speaks minimal English and the other two teachers speak even less. I’m not at all clear on how the school operates and what and when they want me to teach, but that’s my cross to bear tomorrow. Today was just for learning how to remove leaches…one day at a time, one day at a time.

Traveling Circus – An Endangered Species

Sherry — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 22:58:43 +0000

Elephant Raising the Big Top

To view the “best of” South Dakota photography click here!

To view all snapshots of the circus – click here!

As a kid, I never saw a circus. I skipped right from playing circus games/acts with my older brother in our front yard (which landed me in the emergency room), straight to Vegas and seeing Cirque de Soleil performances. I never saw a ‘real’ circus, the kind with a big top, elephants, trapeze families, and clowns…until this summer in the Midwest.

I saw a poster in the Milbank grocery store about a traveling circus that was showing up in my parent’s town in a week. When you are living in a small town (even if it is temporary), you are aching for something interesting to happen. So when I saw the poster, I decided that this was it…entertainment at last! The paper had a story about the traveling circus and I found out that the Carson & Barnes traveling circus was the only one of their kind. The traveling circus is a dieing breed; it should be put on the ‘endangered entertainment list’. The Carson & Barnes circus is one of the last big tops traveling the country. The paper also stated that if anyone wanted to see the big top raised, you could show up at the grounds at 8AM to see the elephants raise the tent. It seemed like a great photo op, so I bought my tickets and cleaned off my lenses.

My dad and I went into town early at 8AM to go watch the activity. Little did we know that we would actually get involved in the activity. As we were watching the circus crew set up everything, a man came over and asked my dad for some assistance in finding a local machine shop as they needed to do a trapeze repair. As my dad ran off to assist, after all the show must go on, (and after all, I couldn’t write a post about the circus without using that line…sorry), I stuck around and photographed the raising of the big top.

It was quite an operation to watch as hundreds of workers plus one elephant raise a tent next to the corn field on the outside of town. This process took over 4 hours in all to go from a flat tent to a functioning big top. I talked to one of the workers and found out that as soon as the show ends tonight, they pull it all down and get on the road again the next day at 5AM to do the exact same thing in another town…day after day. This is a job that took patience for repetitive tasks that I would never have. Note to self…never run away and join the circus; no matter how desperate I am to find a job.

We took my 3 nieces to the circus later that evening; they had never seen a real 3 ring circus either. It was an international affair as all of the performers were from other countries and most had been with the circus for generations. As I watched various families perform death defying acts high above the ground with no nets, I looked around at the small crowd and wondered…how many years does this big top have left?

It was a good show overall and I think the small town of Milbank was thoroughly entertained as well as myself. The performances received plenty of ooh’s and ahh’s. I felt as if I had stepped back in time to a life before cable tv and video games. Early the next morning, the many, many trucks loaded with animals and tents took off leaving no trace and ready to do it all over again a hundred miles down the road.

Animal Encounters Of The Hoofed Kind

Sherry — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 23:22:30 +0000

Buffalo lounging in the grass

Photo: Buffalo lounging in the prairie grass

To view the ‘best of’ South Dakota photography – click here!

Click here to see all of the snapshots of our animal encounters, Mt. Rushmore, and hiking.

The signs were everywhere. In Pierre, along the interstate, near Rapid City, in small towns…the silhouette of a buffalo and some scripted writing with an arrow pointing the direction of “Dances with Wolves Filming Site”. I haven’t seen the movie for some time; however I do still remember the Indian name for buffalo, tatanka. It’s probably the only Indian word I know. It seems like the movie Dances With Wolves put South Dakota on the map.

On day two of my family vacation we unknowingly were on a South Dakota Safari. It seemed that our travels kept leading us into the path of wild animals, sometime on purpose, sometimes on accident. Luckily, we survived all of the encounters and so did the animals…yet I believe we probably equally scared each other!

We decided that we would explore the nations 2nd largest state park, Custer State Park. It’s nestled in the Black Hills of South Dakota on the western edge of the state. After traveling through the Midwest for a while, it’s always exciting the first time you start to see hills, they look like mountains and your eyes are relieved to get a glimpse of something that isn’t so flat and vast. That’s how I felt when I entered Custer State Park, relieved to know that there is something else other than wheat fields and hay bails as far as the eye can see. My dad navigated the scenic Needles highway through a multitude of curves and turns; I thought about how I’d rather be the driver than the passenger in this situation while wondering what needles had to do with hairpin curves. We came out of the woods and I had my answer, the needles were the rock formations that loomed in front of us jutting up out of the forested hills. We pulled over so that I could take some photos and get some fresh air before car sickness took hold!

As we were walking around the rocky area I heard a weird noise and saw something move out of the corner of my eye. I looked left in the direction of the UMO (Unidentified Moving Object) and I was surprised to see a large white mountain goat jump onto a huge rock about 15 feet above where my dad was standing. I grabbed my camera and started shooting as it continued to jump and make its way down the rocky cliff face and onto the road. As it reached the road, it ran right towards my dad and stopped about 5 ft. from him. The goat looked at him for a few seconds, and then ran around him. I honestly thought that my dad was going to get rammed, but they must have had some sort of meeting of the minds deciding that they were friends and not foes; not to mention too stubborn to move.

After our close encounter butting heads, we went on towards Mt. Rushmore to view the famous heads. This was my main goal in coming to western South Dakota; to get a dose of the ultimate monument in American pride. It’s the one monument that will last longer than any other thanks to it natural, sturdy construction. There is no entry fee for the monument, which makes it my kind of tourist attraction; budget friendly! However, parking was $10 and there’s really no getting around that unless you arrive by bus. I share a birthday with one of the rock heads, but even that didn’t get us free parking.

Mt. Rushmore was pretty much what I expected, impressive and very patriotic. The museum/visitor center was full of footage of the construction as well as history of the famous presidents. As I read the historical information and presidential quotes, it reminded me of just how unique this country is. For all of my disgust with it at times, I have to admit, it is a pretty amazing place with a strong cultural personality; unlike any other country I’ve ever been to.

The remainder of the day we traveled by many more Dances With Wolves signs through the town of Deadwood and winding through Spearfish Canyon. We even made it to Wyoming where the rocky hills oozed out into a vast rolling ‘big country’ of hills and open spaces. This is where we had yet another animal encounter, with Bambi. Bambi was in the middle of the road and we were hurdling towards it trying to quickly decipher which way Bambi was going to turn. Odds were that Bambi would turn; Deer never stand still when you want them to. We slammed on the breaks and veered to Bambi’s right the exact direction which Bambi decided to go of course. I braced myself and cringed knowing that we weren’t going to be the ones hurt in this situation…the Honda outweighed Bambi. I watched out the front window as the little white tail was going to be swallowed by our car, but by some miracle of good brakes, we ended up simply tapping it and saw that it was able to run off and up the hill without any noticeable limp. All was fine in the enchanted forest, but it was one very close encounter…I mean call.

The next day I was ready to see tatanka – not just on a sign announcing Dances with Wolves, but the real thing. Custer Park has herds of buffalo roaming the park in the prairie areas. We took off early in the morning and I strapped all of my cameras around my neck in the hopes of maybe seeing a buffalo. Sure, I had seen the buffalo in Golden Gate Park before, but they are fenced in and not as ‘convincing’ as seeing a large herd out in the grasslands of South Dakota…the motherland of tatanka. We wound along the park road eyes peeled for anything brown that moved. A car in front of us had pulled over ahead, so I knew that there must be something worth stopping for. Sure enough, a huge male buffalo was slowly walking across the grassland! I got out of the car and used my zoom lens to capture it. After watching it lumber along I was pretty satisfied with our sighting – my goal was met. We continued on and went around the corner and to my surprise there was the rest of the herd – about 100 of them roaming freely.
Click to enlarge my bufalo sighting – from one to many!

All of a sudden I was transported back to Kenya on safari. I felt like I was really on an adventure…right here in my home country. I hung out the window shooting the herd on both sides of the road. They were slowly on the move and we, along with a long backup of other cars, were in their way. I’ve never seen anything like it before, we were literally caught up in rush hour traffic, but the traffic had hoofs and was larger than most sedan size cars. This was a test of patience as we sat there for at least 30 minutes stopped or inching along as the herd slowly moved through the road calling/snorting to one another. As I hung out the window taking photos, I couldn’t help but laugh and recall how much this reminded me of India. My parents were getting a bit impatient about the whole buffalo jam, and I just channeled my ‘travel patience’ which I acquired last year around the world and really enjoyed the crazy moment. The buffalo were surrounding out car, walking by so close that I could reach out and touch them…but decided against it as a 2,000 lb buffalo was a bit intimidating to me!

Click to enlarge photos of the traffic jam!

The close encounters of the hoofed kind were exhilarating, and a bit dangerous. Luckily no person, animal, or car was harmed on any of these encounters! The buffalo traffic was by far my favorite experience of the whole trip to the edge of South Dakota. It made me realize how much I have missed traveling and crazy adventures that are truly out of the ordinary; experiences which aren’t contrived and scripted like most of our tourist attractions. I think I’m about ready to leave again…which is good considering I have a one way ticket out of the country on August 26th.

Photo: I couldn’t resist this shot! Maybe I am still 11 yrs old…

Feline Visitation Rights

Sherry — Sun, 04 May 2008 13:56:43 +0000

sniff, sniff...

Photo: Since I’m in the process of selling off all of my posessions, my friend Linda sent this photo to me as a joke!

I used to say that my cat, Palucci, had love for only one person; that person used to be me. However, when I decided to do my long term travel last year I knew I had to come up with a new home for her. This task was not as easy as one might think. Sure, she’s cute, well kept, soft, playful, loving, cuddly…but only to me; everyone else she hates. Not only hates, but uses her good looks and fuzziness to lure people in and then bite them. I keep the Neosporin on hand as blood has been drawn many times. Her feisty attitude never really bothered me, in fact I kind of liked the fact that I was the only one in the world that she loved. She protected me…from everyone. She hated men that I dated, kids, friends; except she did have a bit of a soft spot for my mom, but who doesn’t?

I had an equal amount of love for her, I had her since she was a kitten 9 years ago. After 7 years, I became allergic to her; but even then I opted to take a myriad of allergy medicine every day instead of getting rid of her.

My good friend Linda was witness to my emotional melt down two years ago; no one could take my cat while I traveled and I was completely distraught trying to figure out what to do with Palucci. I was leaving in 3 months for my journey and needed a solution. I couldn’t just leave Palucci behind; she was my family. Linda took pity on me saying “I’ll take your cat if you want; I was going to get one anyway. I wanted a nice cat, but that’s ok, it’s only for a year.” Problem solved!

I took Palucci to Linda’s home in Storrs, Connecticut a few weeks before I left the country. It was a tearful parting, but I knew she was in good hands…Linda that is. I knew that my cat only had love for one person and soon she would forget me, and start loving Linda. She’d be adorable, cuddly, talkative, playful…all for the sole attention of Linda.

Photo: Linda and Palucci
Sure enough, I was right. As I traveled the world (allergy pill free), I had updates from Linda. She and the cat were getting along amazingly well. Linda loved the cat, the cat loved Linda…a perfect match. So when I came back to the US after 16 months of traveling, I had a big decision to make yet again. Do I take my cat back?

I knew what the answer had to be…it could be nothing else than “no”. I was still deathly allergic to her, I had no idea how long I was staying in the US, nor where I was going to live; and the cat was perfectly happy. I had to give her up for ‘adoption’ to Linda. She was Linda’s cat now. However, I had lifetime visitation rights.

When I arrived in Storrs, it had been 20 months since I had seen Palucci. I wondered if her little pea brain would remember me, but mostly I wondered if she would hate me. When Linda and I walked in her door, Palucci was there, just like old times, purring and looking for attention. Yet after the normal minute of rolling around she stopped, stared, and ran away to hide. I got my answer, she definitely remembered me. In the past when she would run and hide it was because she was scared; normally associated with me moving her across the country to a new apartment. She would go find a little nook and stay there for hours until she realized that we weren’t leaving this new place.

I believe she was definitely scared when she heard my voice and smelled my scent, she ran and hid because she thought I was going to take her away again. Eventually she came out of her hiding place, and slowly checked me out more. I think the whole experience confused her. This cat that had love for one person, now had a dilemma. She would come to me and cautiously check me out and let me pet her, then she would go run to Linda. Eventually, as we sat on the couch, she came and sat between us not really able to resolve who her loyalty should go to; the past or the present.

After two days at Linda’s playing with Palucci and hanging out, I was able to steal away a few precious moments and memories. I was relieved that she didn’t treat me like other people, she didn’t bite me, she wasn’t bitchy, she didn’t hiss. Instead she fell into old habits with me, cuddling, playing, and sleeping with me. I was also able to see how much Palucci loved her new owner and home; Linda provided her more attention and love that I ever could have. I was also able to realize just how allergic I still was to Palucci as I wheezed with asthma and my eyes watered. In the end, it was clear that she (and Linda!) had been very happy with the last 20 months, and that they would continue to be going forward. I was thrilled that everything had worked out so well. I was also thrilled that Palucci remembered me; she not only remembered me, but she still had saved a little unconditional love for me – the person that gave her away. I had been wrong; she was able to love more than one person.

Road Trippin USA – Vol. 5

Sherry — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 04:24:20 +0000

Lexington, KY to Franklin, TN Bluegrass Country

For all snapshots of the Horses and the day’s road trip sites – click here!

Today we spent time exploring Bluegrass country. The grass really isn’t blue – but it’s called bluegrass…go figure. I do have an explanation though – in the spring, bluegrass produces a bluish-purple bud that, when seen in large fields, give a blue cast to the grass. Kentucky lies on limestone. This limestone infused grass is said to build stronger equine (horse to you and me) bones. Also, bluegrass makes for a good pasture as it can tolerate a lot of grazing. Hence, Kentucky is the bluegrass state known for its horse racing industry. Ok – that’s your lesson for today.

We pulled into Lexington Kentucky and found an interstate cluster of the typical hotels/motels. Here’s a bit of trivia for you all that Kathleen taught me…what’s the difference between a hotel and a motel? A hotel has doors that open into a hallway, while a motel has doors that open to the outside where your car is inevitably parked. Tomaaaato, Tomate-o…hotel, motel…I use it all interchangeably and I think it drives Kathleen crazy. One of many things I’m sure. We drove around to the cluster of hotels/motels and found the one that would give us the best deal – the Best Western. It was nestled between a Hampton Inn, a McDonalds, a Waffle House, and a Porn shop called Hustler….perfect.

Lexington Kentucky is known for its horses, in fact, it’s the horse capital of the world. It’s the main industry in the town. Kathleen and I decided that we needed to learn more about the horses here and what exactly made the area so good at producing race horses. We made a reservation at Horse Farm Tours for an early morning tour with Margaret, the owner, the next day. Our plan was to learn about horses in the morning, and then move south to Mammoth Cave National Park in the afternoon.

This was the morning I was to eat at my first Waffle House. I was rather excited about the prospect of finally trying a sacred waffle from the southern restaurant chain that has been taunting me along the hi-way. As we went down to the car the next morning to repack our things and head off to breakfast before Margaret showed up, Kathleen said “Did you know that you left the window down?” I immediately became defensive – “No, I didn’t leave the window down in the car.” Sure, I haven’t driven for a while but I’m not a complete idiot I thought to myself. As Kathleen got in and shut the door, the whole driver side window disappeared into the abyss between the door. It was lost…never to be seen again. Now we had a problem. No driver side window that we could roll up meant the rain that was forecasted for today would be a problem. However, the biggest problem was that we couldn’t leave the car for fear of anyone breaking in since we had no window! After all, we were carrying 3 laptops, a digital SLR camera and lenses, 2 ipods, and an iphone…it was a regular treasure chest of electronics. Oh – and did I mention that it was chilly outside? We panicked at first – trying to determine a solution. Eventually we made our way to a garage that said they would look at it and fix it while Kathleen and I went on the horse farm tour. Great – things may actually work out after all – yet this did mean that I missed my Waffle House breakfast.

Margaret was waiting for us as we were returned back to the hotel from the car service garage. She got up and said “Your late!” – we immediately liked her. Margaret was the president and owner of Horse Farm Tours, Inc….and it was clear that she was in charge and it was clear that she loved the horse industry all the way down to her horse earrings. We stepped into her pristine van that said ‘Boss’ along the door. She had a dry sense of humor with a drawl that was irresistible. Margaret was cool – and she knew everything about the horse industry. Perfect. It was a 3 hour tour full of information about the horse industry…racing horses, show horses, breeding, we saw it all. Well – we didn’t SEE the breading…but we saw the ultimate outcome, foals. The tour included a tour of downtown Lexington, a tour of the Keeneland Race Track, and a tour of various horse farms.

Our timing of this tour was despicable. Opening day for Keeneland is April 4th, and of course we were 3 days too early for that. However instead we were able to see the horses during practice – going through their morning drills with the jockeys. The horse industry means big money. The horse farms were built upon rolling hills upwards of 600 acres lined in white fences. Margaret informed us that the white fence actually cost $18,000 per mile of fence. This includes the initial construction, and frequent upkeep of paint, repairs, etc. Now imagine putting fencing around 600 acres – you better hope that you have a triple crown winner to afford that! Lexington loved their horses so much that their prison was even built to resemble a horse farm. It looked like a pristine farm nestled in between the rest of the horse farms…yet this one was fencing in prisoners!

Margaret continued to entertain us with jokes, trivia, and tons of horse facts. She dropped us off at Jiffy Lube 3 hours later. To top it off, she provided us with some great travel tips for our travel south including historic landmarks and restaurants. We headed south down the Bluegrass Parkway and stopped at Kurtz’s restaurant in Bardstown, KY to have a lunch my grandma would have served me; soup, sandwich, and a piece of cream pie with a 3 inch meringue on top! We wanted to stop at the Makers Mark Distillery, but decided that we had to forgo it since we were trying to get to Mammoth Caves before the park closed. Later we came to find out that we had crossed over into the central time zone and gained an hour…damn – we could have been sampling bourbon. With our newly acquired hour, we decided to follow the signs to Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace in Hodgenvile, another recommendation from Margaret. As we pulled up to the huge marble monument – it looked as if it belonged in DC, but it was out in the woods with a majestic set of stairs leading up to it. As we walked up to the structure, I joked that maybe there was a log cabin inside of this structure. Sure enough, we set foot inside and that’s what it was – Abe’s log cabin – encased by a marble monument! I felt honored that we were able to see the original Lincoln Logs; especially since I share a birthday with dear old Abe.

Photo: Kathleen descending into the new entrance!
We moved on south to Mammoth Cave National Park. Neither one of us had ever heard of this park, but Jim from Virginia (Inn at the Crossroads) had recommended that we stop here and see the world’s longest cave system. Who knew that Kentucky housed the longest cave system in the world? It was over 350 miles of caves deep underneath the Kentucky limestone. We stopped off here to take the 2 hour ‘New Entry’ tour. The New Entry was actually discovered in 1925…not really so new, but it was a engineering feet. It was a descent of 250 feet straight down a metal stairway through narrow wet rock formations; definitely not for the claustrophobic! The cave itself was stunning and the tour was good. The park even ran beginning caving/spelunking tours where you learned how to fit through narrow spaces that no human should be able to fit through – especially after eating southern food. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to do that tour, but I put it on my list for a return trip.

We continued into Tennessee and through Nashville into the town of Franklin where we decided to stay for the night. Franklin was the start of our Civil War/Plantation journey, so it was a good place to stay for the night. We found a cute little B&B, the Marshal House, off the beaten path to stay at. Glenn and Ursala welcomed us into their country home and provided us information about the area. After an amazing dinner of BBQ at a local joint in Franklin we settled in for some rest after our eventful day! Horses, presidents, and caves while enjoying some southern cooking – a good trip through Kentucky!

To find more information about the Margaret’s Kentucky Horse Farm Tours – click here! www.horsefarmtours.com

Budget Tokyo

Sherry — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 07:04:01 +0000

View Tokyo Photography

View Tsukiji Fish Market Photography

View Tokyo snapshots

Since I only had 4 days in Tokyo, and little money left for traveling, I had a challenge – how do you stay in Tokyo on a budget. After months of living a simple life – I think I was up to the challenge. The first big accomplishment was finding a reasonably priced hotel amongst the sea of business travelers on company expense budgets. I was lucky enough to find Sawonoya Ryokan – an oasis surrounded by the old neighborhoods of Tokyo. For $40 a night I stayed in a small room, slept on a straw mat on the floor – but had plenty of comforts such as television, tea, free internet, and a shared Japanese bath. In addition, they served breakfast in their lobby area – western style for $4 and an authentic Japanese breakfast for the same price.

If you are on a budget, then the subway is a must. After spending a day lost in the subway, I became much more at ease with the Tokyo subway for the remaining 3 days. All of a sudden, it all made sense, as I looked around I even noticed English signs that seemed to escape me the first day in my confusion and panic. The subway rides range from $1.60 to $3.00 depending on the distance you are traveling. This is a bargain compared to the one cab-ride that I took which lasted about 20 minutes and cost $25. However, I found that my favorite way to get around was on foot. It is really the way to see neighborhoods and culture and Tokyo.

Photo: Man feeding birds in Ueno Park
Most days I chose one or two neighborhoods to explore. I would take the subway to one and then walk all day around it or into others and then subway home. My walking took me to many wonderful places where I was able to explore at my pace. I learned that if you want to experience ‘old Tokyo’ – then you need to spend time in Ueno and Asakusa. I spent a whole day walking through these neighborhoods to simply watch and understand Japanese life. I started off walking around the neighborhood, the little back alleys sprinkled with bikes and green plants. The first thing that struck me is that there were many bikes in Tokyo – however none of them appeared to be locked up. I knew that Tokyo was safe – but I couldn’t fathom leaving bikes outside not locked up…that seemed ludicrous. I thought for a moment that I had walked into this safe haven utopia! However, after day two and a little closer inspection of the bikes, I realized that they had a wheel lock built in – no separate piece – it was already attached to the wheel and then went through the back spoke. Granted – the locks still weren’t prohibiting anyone from picking up the bike and carrying it away…indicating that Tokyo is safer than most large cities. In addition, I found it funny that everyone rode their bikes on the sidewalks amongst the pedestrians. As a pedestrian, you always had to be on your toes. No one seemed upset or mildly concerned about the bikes intermixed with the pedestrians on foot. It’s not like the sidewalks were abandoned, quite the opposite – however somehow the bikes and people intermixed successfully – a site you really wouldn’t be able to see in much of the world…certainly not in the US!

I wandered into temples in the various neighborhoods – the uniqueness of the temples called me inside. I watched people as they went through their rituals that all seemed extremely foreign to me. I didn’t really understand much of it, but there was definitely a process that was to be followed. I later learned that before entering a temple, there was always a water ‘trough’ with long handled ladles hanging above it. These ladles were used for ‘cleansing’ yourself before entering the temple. Once you enter the shrine, you are to throw money in the offering box, ring the gong, pray, clap your hands twice, bow, and then back away from the shrine. Of course – since I learned about these rituals after the fact – I’m positive that I will go to Japanese hell (banished to karaoke bars) for not doing these things! Hopefully the Japanese Buddhists or Shinto’s will give me a pardon. Many temples were surrounded by cemeteries. I love how cemeteries vary by country and religion, and I had never seen a cemetery like the Japanese ones. There were gravesites all closely placed together, and they were kept up very well. The gravesites were normally surrounded by flowers, and a bunch of tall, flat, narrow sticks with Japanese writing on them. Each gravesite had about 5 to 10 sticks behind it sticking up tall into the air – as if they were reaching for the sky. They honestly reminded me of giant popsicle sticks. From what I later learned – the giant sticks were Buddhist name markers, yet I still never really understood the significance of them.

Next I came to a huge park filled with people, fountains, fall colors, musicians, and lots of birds.

I found vantage points and simply sat and people watched for a few hours throughout the park – photographing some of the locals and many of the birds. Shinobazu Lake in Ueno Park was full of old men feeding birds – which made it feel like a bird sanctuary. The lake was surrounded by the modern buildings of Ueno, giving the whole place a Central Park feel to me. I then went to a market area in Ueno – one of the last authentic goods markets in Tokyo, Ameyoko Market. It was a post WWII black market that had survived the influx of post WWII department stores – this market survived on old style bartering and selling to locals. When I think of Asia – I think of markets. I loved Ameyoko market – it was my first real glimpse of Asia in this very non-Asian feeling city. It was filled with people hawking fresh fish, clothing, spices, and individually shrink wrapped shoes and boots. I was baffled by why the shoes were shrink wrapped (each one separately), but was never able to communicate my question as to “why?”

Street Sushi

I was starting to get hungry again and decided to try to find some place to eat in the myriad of Japanese signs. I came across a shop stall that had many people hovering around it – so of course I was curious. I noticed a big board with pictures of sushi bowls…instinctively I went to look at the pictures knowing they would be my only way of communicating. I stared at the pictures for a while and finally landed upon one that looked like it might be a bowl of tuna sushi over rice. I watched how others ordered and when I got to the front of the line, I pointed to my tuna bowl – and within 5 minutes I was sitting eating sushi and drinking free tea at an outdoor stall with the locals. Everyone stared at me as I was the only tourists sitting there eating – however I received nods of recognition instead of stares of confusion. I was on top of the world. There’s no better feeling than overcoming the unknown and fitting in. I felt invincible as I sat eating my delicious sushi bowl! My sushi bowl was $6 and it was my favorite lunch I had in all of Tokyo…because it was an authentic experience – and it fit my budget!

I walked around the market some more bombarded by colors, sounds, and lights – most of which were coming from the multiple vending machines on ever corner. Not just one vending machine – normally about 5 or 6 lined up – selling any drink (hot or cold) or food that you could imagine. Instead of Starbucks at every corner, Tokyo had vending machines. I decided to become one of the vending community and stopped to get a juice for a $1. After consulting my multiple maps, I took a long walk towards Asakusa.

Plastic Food

Between the two neighborhoods was a stop that was a ‘must see’ for me – Kappabashi-Dori. Kappabashi is the kitchenware shopping district that supplies locals with every imaginable kitchen/restaurant item that you could dream up. Specifically, I was there to see the plastic food models. Japan is a culture that loves their plastic food. In every restaurant window you can find realistic looking food models showcasing their menu. I of course gravitated to the restaurants with food models not only because I thought they were cool, but it was the only way I could order! I was on a quest to see the plastic food stores – so when I got to Kappabashi street and turned down it – I started to panic since there was no plastic food to be found! However – I realized after I went about 4 blocks, turned around and came back on the other side…there were plastic food shops – however they were all on the right side of the street – not the left….crisis avoided! I surveyed the food, in awe of it’s authenticity and even more in awe of the cost. I quickly realized that plastic food wasn’t in my budget…that is if I ever wanted to eat any more real food meals in Tokyo for the remainder of my stay!

Japanese drum

I continued on to Asakusa with a quick stop at the drum museum – which was a bit of a let down – but worth a photo. Asakusa is the home of the famous Sensoji Temple. The temple seems to be surrounded a tourist market selling Japanese crafts and snacks – worth a stop, but I tried not to linger. The temple was where the great people watching was. A large caldron of incense burned outside the temple. The smoke from the caldron is said to heal any bodily ailments – which explains why I saw a woman putting the smoke behind her ears as if it were Chanel No. 5. I finally called it a day after walking back to Ueno, stopping at a tempura restaurant and eating at the little bar for $8. All in all – a very cheap day, but full of great people watching, learning, and photography.

The next day after my early morning trip to the Tsukiji Fish Market, I wandered around Ginza. The area seemed to be peppered with high end stores, an area that didn’t really fit my budget – however I did find a wonderful photography gallery (Kodak Photo Salon above the Leica Camera Store in Ginza) that had exhibits free for the public. I had to search for it for about 40 minutes and then finally realized that I was within a block of it the whole time…typical Tokyo. Next I made my way to the Imperial Palace Grounds. Once I realized that you couldn’t actually get onto the Imperial Palace grounds, it kind of lost it’s interest for me, but I continued to wander the huge park area that was surrounded by a moat and filled with runners (not the moat, the park). There was even a fountain section that was well worth a stop. Next I stopped at the electronics neighborhood, Akihabara – it was as if Best Buy had exploded and reproduced itself into millions of little electronics stores – duty free, and eager to sell. They bombarded you with amplified voices, flashing lights, and techie music. I felt as if I was walking down Las Vegas Blvd. I felt myself heading down the electronic wormhole – I knew I needed a break and a chance to get off my feet – I had been up since 3AM. It was time to find some lunch. I have to admit – I was in desperate need of some food…any food…which is how I landed at McDonalds…but at least it was a cheap lunch! My favorite part of McDonalds was that they had extensive recycling bin instructions – even to the point of a special recycling place to throw your ice and straw…and of course everyone followed the directions exactly…ensuring that Tokyo stays ultra clean and environmentally responsible.

Skyscrapers are free to look at!

Upon my last day in Tokyo, I decided to go see how the other half lives…the ex-pats. Roppongi. As I stepped out of the Roppongi subway – I knew that I had entered a different world….all you had to do was look up. The buildings were massive, shiny, steel fortresses – protecting the ex-pats from the rest of Tokyo. I did find it funny (and very nice) that there were more English signs in this area of Tokyo than any I had experienced before…in addition – there was a Banana Republic…the real sign of western infiltration. I wandered up the hill and to the Mori Art Museum. I decided that I should include a bit of refined culture into my Tokyo experience.

The museum wasn’t cheap – $15, however it did include a

ticket for the Tokyo Tower and the view that went along with it. I love contemporary art, so I decided to splurge – and I can say that it was well worth it. The art was fascinating, strange, and generally thought-provoking and the view was spectacular. As I was looking at the amazing view, a class of teenage students on a field trip came through the tower and museum. I could have watched them interact for hours…phones glued to their hands, big stuffed animals dangling off the phones, and constant giggling…teenagers seem to be the same all over the world.

I had to race back and grab my bags to catch the long train ride to the airport for my departure. On the way I stopped as a road side stand and bought some sushi for $8 – I had to have it one last time, plus a stop at a vending machine for a drink. As I sat and ate my last Tokyo meal, I took an inventory of my time in Tokyo. I covered a lot of ground – 9 different neighborhoods, I ate with the locals, I ‘mastered’ the subways, I ate for under $10 for nearly every meal, I relaxed in Japanese baths, and I saw the local markets (from the past to the present) – I felt like I had really seen Tokyo, in my 4 short days. Plus, I proved that you can see Tokyo for less than $60 per day (including lodging) and have an amazing time…which is a real bargain!

Yak-i-ty Yak – Shangri-la

Sherry — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 14:14:04 +0000

Yaks grazing in Shangri-la

For all photos of the Shangri-la area – click here!

Before coming to Southwest China, my sister and I were out one night with some of her Singapore friends and they wanted to know where we were going on our pending trip to Yunnan. We rattled off a few places including Shangri-la. There was an immediate ooooohh around the room as someone started talking about how lovely Shangri-la was – wonderful food, great service, nice spa, comfortable beds and the list went on. We were a bit confused by this at first and then it hit us…”No, we aren’t going to the hotel, we are going to the town of Shangri-la!”

Photo: Looking at the Tibetan Monastery in the valley – supposedly Shangri-la
Shangri-la’s association with utopia began when James Hilton described a fictional town in his novel Lost Horizon. In the book, Shangri-la is a mystical, harmonious valley, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains. It has since become synonymous with any earthly paradise (hence the 5 star hotel chain) a mythical Himalayan utopia – a land of permanently happy people isolated from the outside world. One would think that since the book was fiction and presumably Shangri-la was also fictional, that this would be the end of the story…but not quite. As human beings, I think we have to grasp on to the idea that a perfect place exists – therefore many real places try to claim that they are the ‘real’ Shangri-la and capitalize on tourism and capitalism…the very thing that would kill a true utopia…but I digress. The Chinese government also wanted to get in on this potential tourist money maker and officially renamed Zhongdian Country in northwestern Yunnan to Shangri-la County.

We traveled by car into the county they call Shangi-la. We climbed high into the mountains and popped out in this lush, yet cold, valley dotted with villages and fields of yaks. This was my first yak sighting – signaling that I was entering the hearty Himalayan area. One where the bovine needed to grow more hair to survive the harsh weather. A yak is not a buffalo or a cow…it can’t even moo, it grunts instead – living in the harsh mountain conditions staying warm with their coats of long hair. The further you go into the cold region, the longer hair they have – adapting to their surroundings. Yaks are the main source of meat for Tibetans and this part of China – as well as a source of milk. Yes – I did eat yak meat as well as have the famous yak milk tea that is served in this region. Yak milk tea is a main staple of the Tibetan diet made of yak butter, black tea, and salt. I can safely say that the yak tastes like beef and the yak milk tea tastes like melted butter….and yak intestine tastes like a rubber hose.

We came across a heard of yak along the side of the road and I asked for our driver to stop so I could take some photos before the sun set. I watched the yak herders round up the yaks from the field (I have no idea how they figured out which ones were theirs), and walk them across the road stopping a bus in it’s track. The yaks stood in tall fields of golden grass reminding me of Kansas or somewhere in the Midwest of the US.

Photo: Giant prayer wheel at dusk in Shangri-la
As we entered the town of Shangri-la – I have to admit, it didn’t seem like anything special or any more different that the other Yunnan towns we had stayed in. Granted, there were yaks roaming the streets as if they were cows in India, and it was quite a bit colder – but other than that – it was the same tourist store shit. After eating our yak hot pot dinner and having a few beers to wash it down – we walked around the town square to watch the locals kick up their heels and dance the night away. I wasn’t necessarily expecting to see a bunch of Tibetans in leisure suits ‘stayin alive’, but one could hope. Instead it was circles of Tibetan and some mixed in tourists dancing around the square in a ‘line dance’ style. The movement of the hands and arms were much more complex and there was a bunch of hopping involved. Since I was high on yak…I decided to try and join them…plus the alternative was to stand around and freeze – so movement sounded like the best option. I tried to pick an older local lady who looked graceful to follow along and mimic. All I can say is THANK GOD no one had a video camera in our group! I was pretty pathetic and 4 steps behind the group most times – but I was getting warmer and warmer…thanks to the embarrassment of eyes on me laughing! We went back to our chilly little hotel and tried to stay warm in a common area with a pot of coal for heat. We sat around the table and played cards, sipping tea before we went to our cold rooms.

We started off very early the next morning to see the Tibetan Buddhist Monastery named Songzanlin. This was the largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Yunnan and one of the most famous in the region. The monastery was constructed in 1679 and looks like a Kasbah – with houses stacked on top of each other on a hillside. Approximately 700 monks live in those houses in this monastery community. The halls were colorful and ornate – and the Buddha statues were enormous! We turned the prayer wheels, and went to the roof to look around at the view. When we came back down in the hall there were some monks that had arrived to chant…if you can call it that. The monks chant was guttural – loud and amplified grunts rang out through the halls…and a bit shocking at first. I looked at Rebekah and said that the monk could easily be signed to a record label to produce electronica music! I could easily see a DJ pick up great tracks from this guy!

I get the feeling that there was more to see in this Shangri-la…but we ran out of time and needed to be moving along to higher and even colder ground. It was a perfectly nice town, full of ethnicities, culture, and old world charm. But Shangri-la……..weeelllll…I’m not so sure about that. Personally, I’ve been to many ‘Shangri-la’s’ during my travels – for me it’s a state of mind – finding the untouched, and simple lives, the co-existence of many religions and cultures – feeling remote. I’m happy to say that you can find little pockets of that all over the world!

Photo: My travel group trying to stay warm playing cards – scarfs and beer!

Battle Of The Bugs – Voyage To The Great Wall

Sherry — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 04:06:18 +0000

Photo: The Great Wall of China – Mutianyu Section

For the ‘best of’ Northern China Photography – click here!

For all snapshots of the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall – click here!

The Great Wall of China – yet another site that I never really expected to see in my life – but when you do – it makes it all that more special and amazing. Thousands of years ago, the various Chinese emperors, mainly the Ming Dynasty, built the Great Wall to keep the Monguls (Mongolians) out. It was actually rather effective. As I would marvel at the wall construction on steep mountainsides I wondered not only how they got materials up there to build it – but what Mongolians could make it up there to attack?! It looked like an impossible place for any human to go. Yet my father and I took off for 3 days of hiking on the Great Wall.

Photo: Yes – it is steep!
I was a little wary of taking my 71 year old father on a 3 day trek on a steep and crumbling Great Wall – but he seemed up for it – and I promised him we would go slow. Little did he know how out of shape I was – so going slow was for my benefit too! It is the longest (4,000 miles) and largest human-made structure – and after hiking on it for 3 days, it pretty much felt like it! We had planned to visit 3 separate sections of the Great Wall so that we could get a feel for the various types of construction as well as the different terrain that it was built upon. Plus – I really wanted to try to get to the less visited sections of the wall as I didn’t want to be elbow to elbow with busloads of tourists groups – therefore I had to choose sections that would be a little more challenging to weed out the ‘normal’ people! My dad was up for it – so we were off!

However – the first adventure was the drive out of Beijing and to the Wall. This was my first chance to really get a feel for Northern China besides the wide concrete roads and tall buildings of Beijing. It shouldn’t have surprised me that in a city of 14 Million people where 600 new cars are added to the roads every day – there would be gridlock. We sat in traffic for quite some time, our first test of patience. I have to admit – I was impressed that my father was patient about it. I still remember him being disgusted by the lines at Disneyworld and refusing to stand in line for the ‘good’ rides if they were too long – which pretty much subjected me to the “It’s a Small World” ride multiple times. However – we were trapped in the car, couldn’t speak the language, and had no idea where we were – he could hardly get out of the car and walk away – yet I’m positive the thought crossed his mind!

The other thing I noticed as we were trying to leave Beijing at a snail’s pace was that there were tons of police officers at every corner. This didn’t seem to help with the grid-lock – but it did intrigue me for a while – watching them each do their boring, mundane job – it made me feel a little better about sitting in the car not moving. In China it seems like everyone has some type of job…no matter if it’s needed or not. It’s as if they have to make up jobs for people. There were people out sweeping the roadways with a small household broom…at that rate they would make it about 500 feet a day! As for the policemen – I learned from Roseanne, our guide, that the different uniforms they wore meant that they were from different backgrounds and had different responsibilities. The men in the blue were policemen – and they tended to be in the middle of an intersection on a little box direction the vehicle traffic. Sometimes you would also see people in green uniforms – which were the military…I honestly have no idea what or who they directed. Finally the people dressed in Gray uniforms were ‘security officers’ and they seems to carry red flags, stand at each corner and direct the bike traffic and pedestrians. There were normally 6 to 9 various officers at each corner…just standing there…not really effecting the grid-lock from what I could tell – but who knows what it would have been like if they hadn’t been there! I can safely say that I wouldn’t describe China as being efficient. Whether you were talking about traffic, mundane jobs, or pollution control – efficient is not a work that comes to mind.

As we continued to drive out of the city and to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall, I found myself surprised by Northern China – it didn’t seem to be like it’s Asian neighbors. This last year I have traveled through much of Asia – in fact there are few Asian countries that I haven’t been to – so I thought I had a feel for the continent. Yet China was proving me wrong – my expectations were being shattered. I found myself wondering how in the world China turned out so different from it’s neighboring countries. My only explanation is that after years of being closed….they developed their own way. Most other Asian countries had busy/crazy traffic – but it was mostly made up of either cars (Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia) or bikes/motorcycles (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia) – but China was a mix of both…huge 5 lane highways with tons of vehicles – and bikes intermixed. It was a strange and dangerous mix of vehicles – trucks spewing black fumes, bikers, cars, mopeds, motor scooters, and little 3 wheel trucks sputtering down the highway with as much power as a lawn mower engine! The vehicle traffic wasn’t the only thing that set China apart from it’s Asian neighbors – there were many other things such as good roads, cleanliness, not many stray dogs, not many visible poor and destitute, no rice fields (up north), no major religion, and a myriad of basketball courts. All of these things were oddities to me and based on what I had come to know about Asia. It was kind of like bizzaro Asia…everything opposite.

We finally broke through the traffic and arrived at Mutianyu Great Wall. This was about 2 hours drive outside of Beijing and not too heavily touristed. When we stepped out of the car, I looked around and much to my disappointment; I didn’t see any sign of a wall around. I scanned the hilltops – but I saw nothing but trees. That’s when I learned that you have to take a cable car to the Great Wall…and buy yet another ticket for the cable car! Sure – you could skip the cable car – but you would expend all of your energy and a few hours getting to the wall by foot. I didn’t think that would be a wise decision for my father (let alone me!) so we took the cable car ride. Finally – I was able to get my first glimpse of the wall…and it stretched out as far as my eye could see like a long serpent among the green treetops. It was a sunny, yet brisk autumn day – perfect for hiking. This section of the wall was rather well preserved and renovated. Dad and I took it slow and stopped often for water or to simply enjoy the view and take a myriad of photos!

There was one very steep section of this wall…most people skipped it…at least most people over the age of 50 skipped it – but not my dad…he climbed it and at times we had to use our hand and feet it was so steep. That brought us to the final restored tower at Mutianyu. The wall went on from there, but it was not safe to hike apparently. We turned around and went back towards the cable car stop remarking how green and lush it was. We probably hiked for 3 hours total – a good introduction to the Wall.

We traveled on to stay in Jinshanling that night. As we drove deeper into the mountains, it changed seasons – it became autumn and I was ecstatic. For the last 14 months I’ve only traveled in hot weather – sometimes to the extreme. The cool air, the red and orange leaves…it actually made me miss the US for a bit. All I could think about was how much it looked like home outside the car window. I kept on expecting to see some pumpkin patch and corn maze along the side of the road – or a little café that served pumpkin pie…or maybe I was hallucinating from the altitude we were climbing into. What I wouldn’t give for a slice of pumpkin pie with cool whip!

Jinshanling was a less touristed part of the wall, a little more remote, but the most spectacular section of the Great Wall – the perfect combination if you ask me. There was only one hotel in the area and it was at the base of the cable car station. Once again – you couldn’t not see the wall anywhere around you from the ground and it was reachable by cable car.

Our little hotel was rustic to say the least. It actually was a room straight out of a horror movie. The room was dark, eerie, and dank. Only half of the lights worked leaving it encased ina yellow glow. The bathroom was a disaster with only one flickering light that was very dim, and the floor was constantly wet from the shower that was simply a shower head hanging on the wall. I expected Norman Bates to come at me with a large knife whenever I entered it – which was as few of times as possible. The heater plodded along noisily and never seemed to get the room warm enough, there were only Chinese channels on the TV, but the worst part were the bugs.

It was the time of year for the Stink Bug to come out in full force. Like me – they apparently liked fall and cool weather. I think they are the Chinese national bird. They weren’t necessarily a creepy, slimy, fast bug – in fact they were relatively easy to catch and dispose of – but they were the true definition of a pest. They were out in mass on the Great Wall. They fly around like they are a giant bomber…slow, loud, lumbering along until they fly into something with a thud and then simply stay there. As you were hiking on the wall, you’d hear this loud buzzing noise, then it would come into view as it wove back and forth trying to key in on it’s target as if it were drunk. Then it would fly directly into you – or a wall…kind of bounce off, stunned that it hit something, and then land there. This meant that you were constantly flicking them off your clothes while hiking. You’d flick them off into the air and they just keep on flying. This didn’t bother me while hiking – we were out in the open – but in my hotel room was another story. They were everywhere – in the bathroom (but you could barely see them in the dark!), on the curtains, on the bedspread, on the headboard, under my sheets, on the tv, climbing on my suitcase and even a few that ended up on me. My Dad would kill them (it is great to have a male around at times!) but they don’t call them a stink bug because they smell good. When you squish them, they emit an odor and stink…joy. Needless to say – that night I slept in my little sleep sheet tied up over my head like a cocoon around me with my fleece, scarf, and wool socks on to stay warm – and my dad laughing at me of course! At least I know that I’ve become older and wiser – because if I had been in this situation as a child with my father – I would have been in tears…I was now just mildly annoyed. I think my dad was amused either way.

Needless to say – I didn’t sleep to well – even after I tried to inebriate myself with Chinese Whiskey at dinner. We had a big day ahead of us the next morning – a 5 hour hike on the wall and no doubt – many stink bugs to join us.

Swiss Roll

Sherry — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 09:40:24 +0000

On top of Schilthorn - Switzerland

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There used to be a brand of treats called Little Debbie (in the Midwest). I would always beg my mom to buy us Little Debbie Swiss Rolls. They were basically the same as a Hostess Ho Ho – but cheaper. I could eat a whole package of 12 in a sitting if I was allowed; however I was never allowed. Instead I would try to make each individually wrapped Swiss Roll last as long as I could; I wouldn’t just eat these rolls, I would dissect them like a surgeon. Photo: Fresh Brioche in Switzerland First I would pull all of the hard chocolate off the outside, next I would slowly unroll it till it was flat. I would take my finger and smear off and eat all of the white filling, finally I would eat the chocolate cake. I honestly have no idea what the Swiss Roll had to do with the Swiss…not once in my 10 days in Switzerland did I see a Swiss Roll. The closest thing I could find was an adventure activity to roll down a Swiss hill…there’s no chocolate involved…but it does sound fun…why not?

I arrived in Switzerland for a 10 day break from the heat; coming from Northern Africa and going to India. Switzerland was my haven of cool. The Swiss are also lucky enough to have my dear friend Veronique living in their finely tuned country. So not only was this a break from the heat – but a visit to one of my favorite friends on her home turf. When I arrived in Geneva, my other friend Angie, from San Francisco, was also visiting Veronique on her way back home to the US. So we all had a couple of days together to hang out, see some sites, swap travel stories, and get some good ole girl talk in.

Photo: Rides at the Fetes de Geneve
When I made the plans to go visit Veronique, I had no idea that the beginning of August was such a monumental time for the Swiss. August 1st was the Swiss Creation Day! This is basically their independence celebration. This was a party time in Switzerland and around Geneva. In addition to the activities on Creation Day, Geneva had their annual week long Fetes De Geneve – a big carnival like celebration on the lakeshore. So even though I was missing out on all of the state fairs this summer in the US…I had the Swiss version right in front of Veronique’s apartment. I was surrounded by the smell of cotton candy every night! It actually was a fun photographic experience, so I drug Veronique out one night to watch the rides and work on my photography. It was a good outing and I’m rather happy with many shots.

For all Photography of Fetes De Geneve

We have fireworks for 4th of July, and the Swiss have farm brunch on Creation Day. Veronique, some of her friends, and me drove out to the countryside and attended a large farm brunch to start the day. There were Swiss flags flying everywhere, an accordion player, and plenty of cheese…I would expect nothing less from a Swiss brunch. After brunch we decided to try to hike off some of cheese, and make it back into Geneva in time for the fireworks.

Veronique and I decided to go out and explore the Swiss mountains on the weekend. I had my eye on Internlaken, the adventure sports capital of Switzerland! We took off on an early panoramic train ride to Interlaken abut 3 hours from Geneva. I was taken aback by the perfect beauty that I witnessed outside of my train window. The vistas were about too perfect – stunning green hills with little cottages nestled between the hills. I honestly thought Hansel and Gretel were going to come out of the skipping out of the valley and onto the train. We arrived in the Interlaken, a stunning valley surrounded by two lakes, and snowy mountain peaks. The largest mountain was the Jungfrau which was perfectly placed in the middle of the valley. I honestly looked too perfect at times! We made a stop at the tourist office and plotted our activities…trekking, gondola-ing, and zorbing. Being the adventure capital of Switzerland – I really felt like I needed to get a bit of adrenaline rush out of Interlaken – which is where zorbing came in.

Zorbing is not some new dance, or an alien life form – instead it is a Swiss Roll of sorts. It requires a large inflated plastic ball, and a hill…are you intrigued? I honestly can’t believe that I convinced Veronique to do this – but she was game for a roll. We arrived at the Zorbing hill before sunset with a bunch of other thrill seekers (mainly young Aussies…go figure). There’s no skill required to zorb…just a strong stomach. The zorber wears a neck brace, gets into the zorbing ball, straps in as if you were in a jet fighter plane, and then they push you down the hill. The inflated giant ball not only rolls down the hill with you inside, but it also bounces – getting completely airborne at times. At the end of the hill a giant net acts as the brake for the ball. I figured that if I could survive motion sickness on a Moroccan bus – I could survive zorbing! The distance was rather short, but the impact dizzying! Veronique was a trooper and went first. After she nearly lost her pants jumping into the zorb, she strapped herself in and went rolling down the Swiss mountainside! They allowed you to take a small point and shoot camera inside the zorb for the ride, so I of course took the opportunity to document the experience. On my first roll, I attempted to video the ride inside the ball. Unfortunately – I’m having trouble getting it uploaded – so you will have to check back later to see the exciting video – so be sure to check out the pictures in the meantime! After the first complete revolution, I lost control of the camera, but you can hear me laughing all the way to the bottom! On the second roll, I attempted to photograph me at different parts of the roll, mainly getting exciting shots of my elbow. Overall – it was an exhilarating experience – and we both felt like we deserved a glass of wine after the ordeal!

The next morning we spent slowly making our way up to the Schilthorn peak which offered stunning views of the Jungfrau covered in snow. I wanted to hike to the top, but we didn’t have the time, nor the fitness to be able to do that in one day! So we opted for the next best option…automated machinery. The Swiss love their machines…it’s an engineers paradise. We rode up the mountain via train, gondola, and funicular…a trifecta of mechanical engineering! Along the way we did do some hiking between gondola stops. The villages in the mountains were once again pristine and the picture of perfect Swiss living. There was plenty of beer, tuba playing, berry strudel – and cows. The cows were hours of entertainment for me. You could hear them for miles – as they all wore their large cowbells grazing the steep hillside. When I say large…I mean large. I have no idea why the cow needs to be wearing a bell the size of it’s head – I guess the Swiss live by the ‘bigger is better’ attitude…at least when it comes to cow bells. As we arrived at the top by our last gondola – I soaked in the cool air, the quiet, the wide open space – as I won’t get a experience like this in New Delhi!

Veronique and I

The rest of the week in Geneva was spent cooking, doing laundry, trip planning, frivolous shopping, sushi eating, and stocking up on travel necessities prior to arriving in India. I achieved exactly what I wanted to in Switzerland – I was able to visit the home of a very close friend, and I was able to refuel a bit in cool weather. I also had some bonus experiences that really made my time in Switzerland memorable – Creation Day, Fetes de Geneve, trekking in the mountains, and a real Swiss ‘zorbing’ roll!

Photo: Veronique and I at the top of Schilthorn

A Swiss send-off! Video of a yoddeler!

Goats in Trees!

Sherry — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 12:53:18 +0000

Goats climbing an Argan tree

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View snapshots of goats climbing in trees

Since I really didn’t have a book about Morocco, I was learning things as I was experiencing them, as well as learning about things through my other travel partners that had ample books on Morocco. After the first week, someone in my group mentioned in passing something about the Moroccan goats that climb trees.

“What?, What did you just say?”
“In southern Morocco there are goats that climb trees to eat the fruit. Wouldn’t that be cool to see?” They proceeded to show me a picture in their travel book of about 14 goats hanging out high in the branches of a tree.
“ and I was astonished that the rest of the people in my group weren’t as utterly amazed about this as I was. They all kind of looked at me, surprised that I was this worked up about the topic and said, ”I don’t know how they get up there, I never really thought about it. Maybe they just walk up the tree.”
“What??? They can’t just walk up, they don’t have opposable thumbs…how do they grip onto a branch?”

This was the beginning of my pilgrimage to see this ‘wonder of the animal kingdom’. I couldn’t get it out of my mind…like the time I heard that the Russian Cat Circus was performing in Tribeca…I HAD to go and see these crazy Russian housecats perform tricks! I was obsessed with the goats, my brain would sit and chew on it and I just couldn’t come up with any feasible explanation on how they climbed the trees. Sure, mountain goats are definitely nimble…but climbing a mountain and climbing a tree seems totally different to me….I mean…how do they get up the treetrunk to the first branches? I sort of rallied everyone’s interest in the goats and they too started questioning the goats in trees. I talked about it all the time – and we all came up with a number of theories on how the goats got up in the trees.

I thought that they were maybe like reindeer, flew up in the trees somehow. Rob thought that maybe the goats just grew on the trees and when they matured enough, they just fell out of the tree and started walking on the ground…king of like childbirth of sorts. Janelle thought that they took a running jump. Sara thought that they hopped up in the trees and from branch to branch. Someone also threw out the possibility of retractable, special hoofs that would enable them to grip the tree better, and then of course there was the Spiderman theory…sticky stuff on their hoofs. None of them seemed to make sense…but we had no better explanations.

Apparently the goats climbed specific trees, Argan trees, mainly found in the southern part of Morocco. They are a thorny evergreen variety that grow in drough-ridden areas…they are hearty. The Argan trees have fruits on them that the goats like to eat – actually, I think the goats are driven up into the trees in order to find food to graze on since it is so dry in these areas, the true definition of adaptation! People actually use these fruits to make oils that are very healthy and nutty tasting. Plus they make lotions, and other cosmetic products out of the argan oil. Many of the local women have formed a cooperative to manufacture the oil by hand…a painstaking but prosperous job for women in the country.

For some reason I kept on having the vision of a Monty Python movie in my head…The Quest for the Holy Grail. It seemed like some little goofy cartoon that they would use in such a movie…Goats in the trees and then have them fall out and start walking around. Maybe I should talk to John Cleese about this.

The only problem with the goats in trees is that on our 21 day tour of Morocco, we weren’t heading to the south where the goats supposedly hung out in trees. We seemed to go everywhere else in Morocco and experience every bit of culture…but the goats weren’t on our itinerary…damn. I really was hot on the idea of seeing these goats – it was my singular focus – I would pay large sums of dirham to someone that could take me to them! Karina did mention that the closest we’d be to that part of Morocco was when we were in Essaouria. She went on to say that she would ask around and see if there was anyway that someone would take me to Agadir to see the goats. I was so excited at this prospect…I had to see these amazing goats!

When we arrived in Essaouria, Karina contacted one of the local guides that they use to see if she could get any info on the goats. In a matter-of-fact manner he said “Yes, you can see the goats – they are around this area too, about 25 km away” I was jumping for joy as if I were 5 years old and I had just woken up Christmas morning and saw my Barbie Dream House sitting under the Christmas tree! Since I had talked about the goats throughout our trip, I had peaked everyone else’s interest too…and they also wanted to come see the amazing goats. I asked the guide if we were guaranteed to see goats….and I got the answer, “Inshallah”…Arabic for ‘If God wants it’…a popular saying among Moroccans – throw it at the end of any sentence and you will feel like a local.

Hmmm – the inshallah answer dashed some of my hopes – what if God wasn’t on my side for this pilgrimage…instead I may be wandering in the dessert for 40 days looking for goats with a taxi driver. However, I still felt like I should gamble and take the pilgrimage – Moses did…so why shouldn’t I.

We all agreed to hire a grand taxi to drive us out to the areas where you can spot the goats – we were to leave at 9:30. However, that night we had a call from the man that organized it telling us that a 9:30 departure would be too late as it will be too hot at that time and our odds of seeing goats in the trees would be decreased….we should leave at 8:30 instead to increase our odds, inshallah. It did give me hope though as I was assured that the taxi driver knew what he was doing when pilgrimaging for goats. At least he was more educated than me!

Photo: The cramped grand taxi ride early in the morning!
I armed myself with all of my cameras and lenses that morning, and all 6 of us took off at 8:30 cramming into a little 4 door old Mercedes grand taxi. It was a painful, cramped ride, but I was willing to live through the fact that my right butt cheek had fell asleep and it was sweltering already at 8:30…it would all be worth it to see the miraculous goats. I felt like Dorthy heading off in search of Oz and the Wizard…heck….she saw flying monkeys, that didn’t seem so different from goats in trees if you ask me.

As we made it deeper into the country we turned down roads lined with Argan trees and we started to peel our eyes…searching for goats. We saw donkeys standing by trees, we saw camels hanging out in bushes, and we saw goats on the ground…but none in the trees. After about 15 minutes down one road, the driver turned around as he said it was too windy here for the goats to be in the trees. Once again I was impressed with the taxi driver’s knowledge…that certainly had to be a good sign, inshallah. Who knew that the goats were so finicky about the weather.

After another 15 minutes we saw plenty of goats, just none in the trees. I was starting to feel like I had lead everyone on a wild goose chase…we were sardines in the grand taxi, we were sweaty and hot, and none of had eaten breakfast…and there were no goats. Just when I was giving up hope…we rounded a corner and saw a goat herder with a big group of goats, they were huddling around the bushes, and a big tree in the center of a field. I scanned the tree quickly and then I saw it…a white furry shape in the tree, then a black furry shape in the tree, and then another, and another….goats in trees!!! It was a miracle! We all screamed in excitement and the taxi driver pulled over and quickly got out of our clown car to cross the road and get a closer look.

Photo: Goat getting airborne
I was outfitted like the paparazzi, I had my telephoto lens and tried to get as close as I possibly could without scaring them out of the tree – I honestly weren’t sure how jumpy they were (no pun intended). We stayed there watching the goats for about 20 minutes – I took about 60 pictures. We watched them climb up, climb down, jump from branch to branch, and loose their footing…but none fell out of the tree. They were nimble! . It was easy to see how they got in the tree initially, a child could do it. They simply climbed up the trunk of the Argan tree which was normally low to the ground. However, the young, agile ones would climb high up into the small branches and eat the fruit as if it were a tightrope…they were fearless… and hungry I guess. Lord knows that I can understand what hunger will drive you to do…just ask any of my close friends! They would actually leap…getting their front or back legs airborne…it was quite a site. I tried to look closely with the telephoto lens at their hoofs, they didn’t appear to have any special hoofs, and I certainly didn’t see any thumbs! We stood there watching the goats as the goat herder and some other locals were watching us. They were probably as about amazed at seeing us there with our cameras as we were to see goats in trees.

The herder had to move the goats along so we thanked him (I’m sure he was confused as to why) and we all crammed back into the grand taxi to head back to Essaouria. I was so excited about our find that I was giddy all day. My trip felt complete now, and it would be one of my highlights of the 21 days I spent in Morocco. My pilgrimage was a success – next, I may part the Red Sea!
Humdulilah! (Arabic meaning Praise God!)

The Grand Puba of Morocco – Fez

Sherry — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 14:15:09 +0000

Man working in dying vats in Fez

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View snapshots of Fez

Prior to 10 months ago, the only time I had anyone utter the word fez was on the TV show Happy Days. I’m sure that you all remember Mr. Cunningham and his Grand Puba group – as a member of the Grand Puba, he had to wear a fez hat which depicted his membership into the group. That image of the red hat and the tassel had stuck in my head for my lifetime…one of my few experiences with the exotic Arabian culture to date.

The second time I ever heard the word fez was at my going away party last year. One of my friends gave me a book about 1000 places to see before you die and everyone at the party was browsing through it. My friend, Todd, stopped at the entry for Fez. He excitedly asked me if I was going to Fez on this around the world adventure. Visions of Mr. C came to mind and a confused look came across my face. I had no idea what or where Fez was – but I was pretty certain that it wasn’t in Milwaukee! He said that he had heard about Fez and that it was one of the best places to visit, a very authentic and mystical town. I still had no idea what country it was even in – so I just nodded and said “who knows where I’ll end up, but if I end up in Fez, I’ll let you know.” The next morning in my hung over state, I grabbed the book and looked up Fez to read about it…it was in Morocco.

Photo: The famous Fez hat
For some reason that conversation stuck with me throughout my travels…maybe it was the Mr. C image, or maybe it was the exotic sounding name, or maybe it was Todd’s enthusiasm about the place – whatever it was, I felt like I needed to see it. When I decided to change my plans and travel through Morocco, I knew that I had to make it to Fez. I chose a tour route that led me through Fez for a few days as I felt that it would be one of the highlights of Morocco.

The draw to Fez is that it is the most in tact medieval city of the Arab world. It is suspended in time somewhere between the modern world and the Middle Ages. Modern World: electricity; Middle Ages: everything else in Fez. Here are the numbers: there are about 800,000 people living in the medina, 9,500 streets, aprox. 250 mosques, 10,000 donkeys, and about 100,000 satellite dishes. These are unofficial numbers of course – but they are my best guess.

Photo: The Doors to the Palace…the original Golden Arches!
We arrived in Fez after an 11 hour minivan ride through the Moroccan countryside. This was a doozy of a road trip – it was well over 100 degrees out and air conditioning that could be only used for short bursts of time in order to not overheat the car, brakes that overheated, and just a long, long journey. The longest time I’ve spent in a car since living back in the Midwest when I used to be too poor to take a plane! We arrived in Fez in the evening and our lodging was in the new city – a little more modern with internet cafes, bars, and a McDonalds…yes, a McDonalds. I have to admit – one of the things that I am really starting to miss is a good American burger. I’ve tried ordering a few and they are never the same. So when I heard there was a McDonalds in Fez, I knew that I could quench my craving. Yes, yes, yes – I’m sure many of you are appalled by this – as McDonalds is not necessarily the epitome of American burger. However, until you’ve set foot in my shoes, traveled for 10 months around the world, eating out every night of the week, being at the mercy of the local cuisine night after night, not being able to EVER drink water from a tap, then you can judge my eating choices! I sat down to my Big Mac and fries and orange juice and enjoyed every last bite…it was ecstasy. Ok – so there’s nothing medieval about a Big Mac; however, the real adventure started the next morning when our local guide, Hakima, greeted us bright and early. She was to take us on a day through Fez – the old city. It included a Medina tour, shopping and bargaining in the souks, visits to the pottery manufacturer, leather tannery, carpet maker, and lunch.

Photo: Phone home…satelites dishes in the medina
First we went to a great panoramic point high above the old Medina to get an overview of the maze that we were about to enter. The first thing I noticed as we stood on a high hill looking over the medina was the number of satellite dishes on the buildings. Strange things catch my eye sometimes, and I had never really seen so many dishes occupying so little space – each beaconing in the same direction…as if they were calling ET to come home. Each building has no less than 8 satellite dishes on the roof. Photo: Woman painting pottery At this point, the old medina felt more extraterrestrial than medieval to me. However, I guess the satellite dishes didn’t surprise me too much as most of the world’s undeveloped, poorest cities and towns even have satellites. It’s how the majority of the 3rd world is able to view the world around them these days. It is likely that all of the Fassis (people of Fez) are watching old episodes of Happy Days and are getting a good laugh out of Mr. C’s Fez hat! After I got past the dishes, I could focus on the thousands of buildings that were displayed in front of me. It was huge and a bit disorienting. If you really focused your eye, you would see all of these towers sticking up amongst the buildings – the 250 some mosques that were intermixed in the medina. You could also see puffs of dark smoke coming from certain areas which indicated that pottery was being fired there…which is where we headed to next. We went to go see the intricate art of pottery making and mosaics. We saw how everything was made by hand – in painstaking detail. Each mosaic piece was cut by hammer and chisel and then pieced together as if it were a giant jigsaw puzzle. This was one of the few places that employed women. Some women intermixed with the men in the painting area – but this was a relatively new development. The majority of the pottery work was difficult manual labor, so the only place tat the women were allowed to work was on the more artistic side of the creation.

Photo: Stacks of colorful shoes in the medina
Before entering the medina, Hakima first warned us about the usual pickpockets and urged us to stay together the best we could, and to not be discouraged by the begging children that would be following us around. Since the medina was still really a functioning medina for locals, we would stick out rather blatantly…7 Caucasians, toting camera and backpacks – of course we were going to stick out! She also warned us to listen for the word “Ballack!” meaning “watch out/move out of the way” which we would hear when the numerous donkey carts were trying to get around the medina. The medina did not hold any motorized vehicles due to the narrow, curvaious streets and alleys. The only mode of transportation was donkeys and carts. Basically, we learned that we needed to keep on our toes.

Photo: Man holding silk thread to be dyed shortly
The moment you entered the big arched gateway you inhaled the smell, taste and sound of the markets. We were surrounded by the sounds of people and music, we could smell the rich spices intermixed with the smell of olives, and your eyes were entranced by the rich colors and textures that surrounded you. I think I honestly walked for the first 20 minutes with a dumb stare on my face as I took it all in. We entered through an area of food/produce/butchers markets – which is always a site. The shops themselves were normally very small – no bigger than a bathroom and they were all connected with no space in between the buildings. The only space to walk was the narrow ‘road’ which we were sharing with a multitude of locals and donkeys. Many of the shops specialized in just one thing to keep things simple. There was a garlic shop, across from a tomato shop. Imagine if you owned a store the size of a closet and only sold garlic…only garlic…for your whole life. Personally – I would go crazy…but that’s life in the medina. The men that sold olives were also artists. They would slowly put together these elaborate olive displays intermixing patterns with the various colored olives. Seriously, these men should be running the olive department at Fairway…the olive displays were so pretty that you really didn’t want to buy any olives for fear of ruining the display!

Photo: Goats with a splitting headache…ok, I couldn’t resist!
Goat and camel heads hung from big hooks on the corners of shops. Many of the goat heads were split open to indicate that the brain had been taken out and was probably being sold somewhere on the nearby table. The rest of the head was sold for the tongue, and additional meat that could be found on it. Like most cultures, they use all parts of the animals. Next to the goat heads hung long stretchy stomachs for sale. They were a gray/brown dull color with a ton of texture – not very appetizing to me, but to each his own. Full cow and goat carcasses hung from big butcher hooks outside – on display out in the hot sun. All of the carcasses proudly had the testicles still attached and displayed so that you knew that you were buying male meat. In this culture, people only ate meat from male animals, as the females were only meant for breeding; therefore, the testicles needed to be displayed so that you knew what you were getting! God forbid if they slip some inferior female meat in your purchase! We also learned that the shutters and buildings are painted blue because the color blue is thought to keep flies away. I’m not too sure how well that was working at the butchers…as the hanging carcasses seemed like the giant fly tape that used to hang in our garage at home!

In the medina, there were special sections for sharpeners (scissors, knives, etc), bowl makers, dyers, tailors, jewelry makers, rug makers…every kind of trade you could imagine. The work was never easy…it was hard work to be done with the hands. The rugs were made by hand, the large brass bowls were pounded from flat metal into a bowl shape before our eyes, the silk thread was dyed from it’s virginal white to every color imaginable…it was as if you had stepped back to the middle ages. There were even community ovens. Throughout the streets you would see these young boys, about 6 years old, carrying a wooden platter with bread dough on it. They were taking the dough to the community oven to be baked. Most of the locals did not have an oven in their homes, so they all shared one in the neighborhood. The kids were responsible for taking it to the baker and picking it up.

Photo: Leather dying vats…a highlight of my tour!
I had been anxiously anticipating seeing the leathers dying vats in Fez. Earlier in the year I went to a photo exhibition and saw a photo of people working in the leather vats and I had always wanted to go see it with my own eyes. Finally, we arrived at the famous vats of Fez. We went into a leather store that was situated with a great aerial view of the vats. It was the middle of the day – hot, hot, hot – the smell around this area was distinct – animal flesh. We were given sprigs of mint to smell to try to get our senses used to the foul odor. The vats were out in the direct sun…and were organized for leather dying and wool dying. The white stone vats were for wool and the brown stone vats were for leather. When you looked down at them it looked like a little honeycomb of activity…circular vats and men buzzing all around them. The vats were filled with colors made from natural materials such as plants and spices and large leather pieces were submersed and soaked in the dyes. These vats were big – and this was a hands-on job. The men would cover their bodies with Vaseline in order to keep the color from dying their skin, and then they get in the vats to properly soak the leather – imagine Lucy and Ethel in the vat of grapes…now you get the picture. This was not easy work – in fact – I think it ranks right up there with jobs I never want to do! I was mesmerized by their work though – I could have watched them all day. While the rest of my group shopped for leather jackets, purses, and slippers – I put on my telephoto lens and shot about 50 photos of the dyers glistening in the hot sun.

After a delicious lunch with the locals we stopped at one of the many carpet shops next. Buying carpets in this part of the world is like buying a car – it is a production and a game – not to be missed. The carpets are beautiful and definitely one of the major commodities of this area, so it’s well worth a stop to browse. Yet, there really is no concept of browsing as we know it. It’s not like Ikea with racks of hanging rugs to patiently browse through at your leisure. Instead, it’s a well-oiled selling machine – one in which you are befriended, welcomed into a home, sit down and have some tea, see how the carpets are hand made, get educated on the various types of carpets and quality, and then after about 45 minutes of this friendly banter in which you now formed some kind of bond with the person – they get down to business and ask…”So, who’s interested in buying a carpet today?” You are immediately startled out of your social world into the high finance world of carpets! If you say “well, I think I’m interested.” Then prepare yourself for another hour or so of selling, bargaining, and dropping a lot of money (all well worth it if you really were looking for an authentic handmade carpet).

They take you off in a little room of carpets to interrogate you…oops…I mean ‘work with you’ on a more individual basis, and they parade out tons of carpets in front of you trying to narrow down exactly what you are looking for. I decided to only be an observer of the process this time – there were others in our group that were buyers. The carpets were absolutely stunning, however didn’t really fit my décor – so I enjoyed being a spectator and watching other people spend money!

Most of the shopping experiences were like this in some shape or form. You want to buy authentic clothing, material, wood working, furniture, silk, jewelry – they all sit you down and befriend you first, do a little demonstration and then find out if you are interested – it’s a pretty good sales tactic! The whole day was rather educational and I managed to somehow hold on to most of my money – mainly for the pure reason that I refuse to carry any additional weight in my already heavy luggage!

Photo: Me getting some medicinal treatment…
We also made a stop at a herbal medicine man’s shop. He sat us down and showed us all of the various herbal remedies that the locals use as well as the natural makeup and soaps that are used. At the end of his demonstration he asked if anyone had any questions. Without really thinking I asked what he recommended for dry eyes. My eyes have been quite a mess lately – the dry, dusty, sandy conditions of Morocco aren’t what the optometrist ordered! My eyes have struggled in these conditions. The ‘medicine man’ quickly said – yes, I have just the thing, and pulled down this bottle of clear liquid and told me to come over to the bench and lay down. Without even thinking I obliged and laid down on the bench and let him start to pour this liquid into that my eyes. At that moment I realized that I was letting some Moroccan guy that I just met pour a unknown liquid into my eyeballs…maybe not the best idea in the world. To my delight, when I opened my eyes again I could see the world around me still – and my eyes felt good, it was rather soothing. After the fact he told me that it was rose water and it was used to sooth dry, tired eyes.

It was a very long day in the medina. We picked up some fresh fruit for dinner and finally left the medina around 9PM…and the place was still filled with life. The rest of my stay in Fez was more low key. The next night we went out for a sophisticated dinner to say our farewell to the lively city. We had drinks at the Sofitel Hotel which overlooked the medina. It was fun to be in a proper hotel again…doormen, cushy seats, great views…a far cry from my hotel room with the shower over the toilet! We had drinks at sunset and listened to the 250 mosques all do their ‘call to prayer’ at the same time that night. It was a beautiful echoing sound that slowly traveled through and above the medina. Finally that night we had a Moroccan feast at an old restored riad (house) turned hotel. The food was outstanding and the atmosphere warm. I have successfully replaced my old Fez image of Mr. C in his Grand Puba hat with a new image the city of Fez. Both are a step back in time, but only one is the real thing.

Sand In Every Orifice – The Sahara

Sherry — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 15:04:39 +0000

Sahara Desert

View Morocco Photography

View snapshots of the Sarhara Desert

We had been driving for about 4 hours when we turned off the bumpy road onto the flat expanse of desert. You could see for miles. There were no roads, just a few tire tracks and a bunch of signs sticking in the sand advertising various hotels that were nowhere to be seen. I was anxious – similar to the feeling I had when I first turned into a game park in Kenya for my first safari. I was entering a world in which I had only previously seen on television and movies. A world that I never thought I would experience in my lifetime. A world that was unthinkable to me. I knew immediately this was going to be an adventure unlike any I had experienced before. We were going into the Sahara Desert via camels for the night to camp. I had never really seen a desert before…at least not one with camels! Sure, I had made the drive from San Diego to Las Vegas before, but it didn’t prepare me for what I was about to see. This was remote. I was so excited I was giddy and my body tingled…much like when I first arrived in Hanoi or when I set my first step in St. Mark’s square – in awe of the moment.

Our truck proceeded very slowly along the bumpy trail of tire tracks. The driver had to continuously move the steering wheel so that we wouldn’t get stuck in the sand. It reminded me of Bo Duke driving the General Lee in the Dukes of Hazzard – moving the steering wheel back and forth to make it look as if he was really driving a car instead of a prop. Every so often the tire tracks would split of into a ‘Y’ shape and we would choose a side and continue driving deeper into the desert. I could start to see the dunes, glowing orange/red in low sun. Every so often we would pass a random camel, wandering around grazing…on what, I have no idea. It honestly looked like no life existed out here. Pretty soon off in the distance you could see a little building or two and another little sign that seemed to be dwarfed by the vast landscape. Eventually we pulled up to our starting point hotel and first set foot on the fine sand. I’ve been on many beaches around the world, however I’ve never experience sand like this. It was so fine like a dust that immediately coated you and everything you were carrying. So imperceptible that you didn’t really realize it was there until you ran a hand over your arm and felt the layer of sand coating your skin. Apparently, they’ve found sand from the Sahara as far away as Greenland on the icebergs.

We left our large suitcases at the hotel and took just a small pack with the things we would need for the night. That basically consisted of water, a toothbrush, toothpaste, a long sleeve shirt, a sleep sheet, and my cameras wrapped in bags to try to protect them from the sand. I actually decided to leave my telephoto lens behind at the hotel as I didn’t even want to be temped to change lenses in this environment. The sand particles were so small that there would be no way that I would be able to keep my sensor clean.

We met our guide Mubarek all dressed in blue as most of the people in this part of the Sahara wore. The bright blue was a stunning contrast to the orange sand dunes. I was told that they wore blue because it was a bright color that was easy to spot but it didn’t absorb as much sun and heat as black. Mubarek provided us with bright colored turbans and taught us to tie them in order to protect our faces from the sun and the sand. I also dawned my sunglasses since my eyes were already burning from the dry conditions. I had left my vanity behind somewhere on the un-air conditioned local bus ride a few days ago….I knew I looked ridiculous…but I honestly didn’t care. After all, I was about to ride a camel!

Mubarek led us out to our camel train and started to explain how we were to get on and off the camels. The camels were all tied together in a long train so that we didn’t have any control of the reins and they just followed each other ensuring that we didn’t have to think! I do find it amusing that in the last year I haven’t driven a car, but I have been on a camel! I chose a good looking camel…seemed well tempered, and not too smelly. The camels were relatively easy to get on as they sit down on the ground so that you can mount them, but the real trick is to hold on tight and lean back when they stand up – else you may end up doing a header in the sand. Once my camel was standing, I was a bit amazed at how high up you really were, and how uncomfortable they were. Granted, I wasn’t expecting a cush ride, but I immediately knew that I would be saddle sore the next day!

The camel train took off into the dunes. We rode for about an hour and got deeper and deeper into the sand dunes. You could see the fine sand blowing off the tops of the dunes, reminding me I was experiencing an ever-changing, ever-moving landscape. Technically – I wasn’t on solid ground. Add that to the fact that the camel ride was rather jerky, and the sun was quickly disappearing – it made it nearly impossible to get a clear photography shot. I never knew it was so hard to hold a DSLR camera (big, heavy lens and body) in one hand while trying to adjust the shutter and aperture with that same hand and keep things steady. My other hand was out of commission as I had to hold on to the ‘saddle’ of the camel else I would end up in the sand! The camels had no fear, they would walk on the edge of a dune, just plodding away. Finally, in the distance you could see some black tents and a small bit of green grass – our home for the night.

We arrived at our camp as the sun went under – yet the temperature seemed to stay the same…hot. In the other direction the moon was rising…a full moon tonight! Once we set down our packs, Karina immediately challenged us to run up to the top of the dune that was surrounding us – she said that there would be a great view. Sure- it looked easy enough. After about 30 seconds of walking up in the deep sand feeling as if I was getting nowhere – I realized that this was going to be a long, long journey to the top. It was very challenging as you had no point of reference to determine just how high the dune was. It looked as if it was only about 150 feet – however it was probably about 10 times that distance! After resting in the sand for a bit for about the third time, most of the group bailed out as we realized that we were only about halfway up the dune. By this time though I was covered in sand, gasping for air, and I was determined. I changed my tactic to crawling on all fours…which seemed much more effective!

Rob, Sara, and I eventually made it to the top – and it was dark by the time we made it there! We were able to see the view somewhat, but the feeling of accomplishment was all I needed. When I tried to take a couple of photos, the flash went off and you could see the millions of tiny sand particles in the air floating around us. They were undetectable to the human eye, but the flash lit them up in the photo. It was amazing to think that all of these tiny particles were in the air around us! None of the pictures really turned out due to the lack of light, however we were able to enjoy our run down the dune back to our camp…much easier than going up! It’s a fun feeling to run down a dune without any fear of hitting anything or landing on anything dangerous – the worst that could happen is that you would end up rolling down in the soft sand…no problem.

That night Mubarek made us a chicken tanjine for dinner and provided melon for dessert. I was impressed with his ability to cook up a delicious meal in the desert. We all agreed that is was way too hot to sleep in the tents where there was little air flow so we all decided to sleep out on the mats outside under the full moon. Little did I know that the real adventure began when we fell asleep around 11PM. It was still rather hot when I fell asleep but there was a pleasant breeze blowing. I did get inside my sleep sheet more to mentally protect myself from the bugs than to keep warm. For those of you who don’t know what a sleep sheet is, it’s the best item in my suitcase! It’s a very thin, silk sleeping bag sheet that you can use when you are in questionable hotels, or for camping for some extra layer of warmth, etc. I love my sleep sheet!!! That night, the only sounds you could really hear was the camels snorting, and farting in the distance. At 2AM I was awakened by a loud wind and the sound of sand hitting the mat surrounding me as well as my sleep sheet. The wind had really picked up and I realized that my sleep sheet was covered in a fine layer sand as was everything else around me! I noticed that I had accidentally left open my backpack, which was now covered in a layer of sand…crap. I tried to turn around and forget about it but every so often you would get these big gusts of wind and sand that would blow directly into your face! It was still warm, so the tent still wasn’t really an option. I ended up putting the sleep sheet over my head and trying to use it as a little cocoon to protect myself from the sand! I woke up at least 3 more times during the night covered in more sand. At one point I got up and actually took some pictures of the full moon. With the moonlight the whole desert was lit up brightly…as if you had a night light on in your bedroom. Amazingly, I somehow slept until about 5AM and then gave up the pointless attempt at any further sleep and dug myself and my stuff out of the sand layers and decided to get up and take pictures. By about 5:30 everyone had woken up as the sun was quickly coming up, lighting up the sky, and heating up the sand.

Around 6:15 AM we took off again on our camel train back to ‘civilization’. The colors were beautiful and the sun was strong, and my legs were sore from the prior evening’s ride! We had to make a stop half way through the trek as Karina’s thongs fell off her camel so her and Mubarik walked back to find them. I was happy for this diversion as it allowed me to take some photos that were not so movement challenged! I was actually very sad for this experience to end despite the lack of sleep, and smelly camels! Not only would I have a ton of blurry pictures to remember the time, but I would also be carrying the miniscule grains of sand in my backpack and camera cases for years to come!

Muddy Waters – Borneo

Sherry — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 15:00:18 +0000

Russ in the mud volcano

View Borneo Photography

View Snapshots of Borneo

Borneo…maybe you’ve heard of it – but do you even know where it is? I’m sure that if I gave you a globe you’d all have trouble putting your finger on it. What if I told you that it is the worlds 3rd largest island…are you surprised? It contains 3 countries on the island – Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei. Even with all of this information – I bet that half of you still can’t find it! Give up? Check out this map…this should give you some context! Borneo Map

My curiosity with Borneo started about 7 years ago when I was living in San Francisco. I had just moved to the west coast (my first big move into the unknown and out of the security of the Midwest) and I was up late one night watching television. I came across the show Eco-Challenge. It was an adventure race that was shown on some cable channel (before the phenomena of reality TV). The race took place over 3 days for the good teams and about 6 days for the slower teams. It included hiking, mountain biking, kayaking through rapids, horseback riding, caving, abseiling, orienteering, and any other crazy, dangerous outdoor sport that they could come up with. It was in a place called Borneo. I had never heard of it before, but it sounded and looked completely exotic – this sheltered mid-westerner was hooked. I stayed up that night watching until about 3AM (on a school night), utterly amazed at what these people were going through. They raced 24 hours a day, didn’t sleep, they had foot-rot, leeches crawling all over their body (and into places that I can’t even mention), they were living on cliff bars, and were often hallucinating due to dehydration and lack of sleep. These were the toughest people that I had ever seen in my life…and I wanted to be one of them. I was in awe of them and the dangerous, lush, jungle landscape that surrounded them. I got out the map that night and looked up Borneo – it took me quite some time to find it as I had never really heard of it before – but when I did, I knew that it would be someplace that I would visit one day.

After watching Eco-challenge, I started getting interested in adventure racing – wondering if I was tough enough to really do what those people did. My next few vacations I took were adventure vacations to test out my ability in the various activities as well as testing out my ability to ‘rough it’. After sleeping in the Australian rain forest in a hammock scared to death of every noise and bump in the night, I realized that I probably wasn’t cut out for the adventure racing life, but the experience kicked off my interest in travel to exotic places and smaller scale adventures. I may never get to pull leeches off my body, but I knew that I wanted to go explore, I wanted adventure, and I wanted to push myself. Shortly after I got hooked on Eco-Challenge, the first Survivor aired on television (also shot on an island in Borneo).
My friends and I would watch Survivor every week religiously – I loved the mental game that came along with Survivor, getting people to do what you wanted, persuasion, mixed with athletic activity. I was so in love with the concept of Survivor that I actually applied for the 2nd season of Survivor. I was still on a quest to be considered ‘tough’ (and I liked the side benefit of the weight loss!). I obviously never made it on the show, but I’ve been a fan ever since.

When I decided to do this around the world trip, I got out a world map, laid it on my floor, and immediately knew that I had to stop in Borneo…there was never a question in my mind. It was my ’spiritual travel birthplace ‘ – and I had to take this opportunity to see it.

On this leg of the trip I had another friend join me. After all, it is winter in NY and many of my friends were itching to get out of the cold. However, there’s really only a few people that were interested in Borneo…or even knew where it was! My friend, Russ, was ready to brave the headhunter island with me! This really marked a new experience in my traveling. Sure, I had friends join me before – but never a guy. Finally – someone to carry my luggage and to kill the bugs! Russ has been a running friend of mine for the past 2 years. I’ve trained for marathons with him (he’s super fast), and we formed an unlikely friendship through logging many miles in Central Park. I say it was unlikely because we honestly didn’t have much in common except running. He didn’t drink – I was/am a lush. Photo: Russ in China Town
He went to Bible Study on Friday nights – I went out clubbing and drinking. He loved his work – I was always trying to figure out way to get out of work. He doesn’t eat refined sugar – I put sugar on my pancakes. To top it off – I’m about 10 years older than him. But for some reason – we got along – I think we’ve both been fascinated in each others lifestyle – we both like to experience new things, and like to form diverse friendships. He’s very well traveled – so he was a great candidate for Borneo!

He arrived in Singapore and had his first adventurous experience spending time with my nieces. He beat them all at DDR (Dance, dance revolution). It was really fun for me to have a friend come and take part in my Singapore experience. Like most of my friends, he’s single, lives alone in NY, and has little to no contact with typical family life consisting of school, sibling fighting, and homework. So it was fun to watch my nieces devour him! My brother-in-law, Frank, was simply happy to have another Y chromosome around the house – even if it was just for a day! Russ and I went out exploring the cultural areas of Singapore the first day he was here – we went to China town, Little India, and Clarke Quay for some nightlife. It wasn’t long before jet lag took control though…Russ fell asleep in the cab home that night!

We left for Borneo out of Johor Bahru, Malaysia. It was an early morning taxi ride from Singapore across the border to Malaysia – my first land border crossing I had done in a while. We arrived in Kota Kinabalu (the largest city in Malaysian Borneo) early in the morning. We had the day left open to explore Kota Kinabalu. We quickly found out that the Chinese New Year holiday pretty much had shut down the whole city down – like Christmas in Nebraksa…no stores or markets were open. We did find some movie theaters that were open – so we ventured into it to see what was playing. We picked the best movie out of the sad bunch of choices and decided that since the ticket was only $2 US that we could stomach Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant in a romantic comedy…ugh. We got our tickets and quickly ran to the theater as it was about it start. When we got inside the theater, it was pitch dark so we had to find/feel our way to our seat number (assigned seating is typical around Asia). We climbed over people and generally made a commotion. We no sooner sat down and got comfortable when some young kid who worked at the theater came and asked us to leave as we were in the right seats, but the wrong theater…we had it 50% right! I did think it rather odd that Hugh Grant was going to be in some Sci-Fi movie! We embarrassingly climbed over everyone again and made our way to the right theater. Little did we know that this concept of being halfway there would be a reoccurring theme in our travel around Borneo.

As we walked around the deserted town, we realized that we were two of a handful of Caucasians in the whole town…heck…the whole country. I guess that makes sense since most people from the US don’t even know where Borneo is! We were on a big island – so we decided that we would treat our-self to seafood that night.
We went to a place called The Seafood Village along the harbor. The front of the restaurant had three levels of huge fish tanks full of a variety of frutti di mare. It was also packed with people dining – large families dining together in this overwhelming banquet hall setting. In fact – as they seated us, I looked around and realized that the smallest table they had was one that sat 6 people. Most of the tables there were full of 10 to 12 people eating ‘family style’. Russ and I were dwarfed at our big table for 6…but we spread out and looked at the menu. The menu was all family style – with two portion sizes – small (feeds 4 to and large (feeds 8 to 12). We looked at each other and kind of panicked…sure – Russ was a guy that could put away a lot of food – but a rice serving for 6 people even seemed a lot for him! There were tons of wait staff mulling around – most likely amused by the Caucasian couple trying to figure out what/how to order. They all had little ear pieces in their ears – most likely getting information from the kitchen or hostess. I imagined that there was a big warning going through the wait staff’s ears at that moment…”Code White, Code White! Caucasian couple at table 54 – they look confused and about ready to bail – someone go assist them ASAP!!!!” Sure enough – this older Chinese woman came over and asked – “Do you need some help” We both said a relieved “YES!!” This lovely lady led us over to the fish tanks and helped us pick out a grouper for two…perfect. Then she let us order some soup and rice that was on a per person basis rather than family style…we were saved! The Code White was diverted! The meal was fabulous – we were surrounded by boisterous Asian families enjoying thier Chinese New Year – a great way to ring in the year of the Pig!

Russ and I had worked with a local travel agent to plan our activities back in December. We were both rather busy and couldn’t seem to get to it ourselves (don’t laugh…just because I don’t have a job doesn’t mean that I’m not busy!). We had one main desire – we wanted to climb Mt. Kinabalu – the tallest peak in Southeast Asia. I’ve included that as a separate post…so you’ll have to read about that separately. However we also wanted some other adventure such as white water rafting, we wanted to see the wildlife, and we wanted to beach/relaxation time. The travel agency put together a good itinerary…at least it seemed like it at the time. I guess I overlooked exactly how much time we were spending on the road to get to these various destinations. Suffice it to say – we had ample opportunity to see the countryside as many days we were in the car commuting longer than the activity itself. After a week of activities, we also concluded that Borneo was an emerging travel destination for westerners…sure – they had tons of travel agencies, hotels, and tours – however we found that most of the time – they were about 50% there on the execution of such tours. So – as a traveler – you had to be patient, trusting, and simply go with the flow.

Photo: Local woman and child traveling on the train We decided to go white water rafting on the Padas River. We had both done white water rafting before and were looking forward to some good rapids. We seemed to overlook the timetable that laid out our day…2 hour bus ride, 1 hour train ride, 1 1/2 hours rafting, 1 hour train ride, 2 hour bus ride back to hotel…oops…I guess I should read the fine print better! Our driver picked us up 15 minutes early which made us miss our free breakfast at our hotel. Now there are two things that I hate…I hate missing breakfast, and I really hate missing a free breakfast. My friends in NY know only too well how cranky I can get without breakfast – poor Russ – he had to put up with me. Since we had to leave early – I grabbed the bag of trail mix that I had in the hotel room figuring that I could eat it on the bus as a substitute for missing breakfast. The guide put us on a tour bus with virtually no information exchanged besides ‘hellos’ – no one really told us what to expect, what to bring, where we were going…ok – no big deal…just go with it. After an hour of driving and me fuming about not having breakfast – I decided to eat my trail-mix. I got it out and was about to open it when I noticed that ants were crawling all over inside of it. They were in ant sugar heaven…I was in a sick hell. After another hour of bus driving, we arrived at a train station in which they once again told us nothing but we simply followed the crowd out to the train tracks. We waited around for a train and after about 15 minutes in the hot sun a single rail car pulls up. We all piled on to this old, dilapidated train car like sardines. Luckily Russ (being a good 5 inches taller than everyone else) got on quickly and got us a seat. We then set off for another hour and finally got out and followed our guides – for the first time in 3 hours of commuting – they actually told us what we were to do…leave our stuff here since this was our ending point. Great…some information finally. We hopped back on the train slathered in sunscreen and went to the beginning of the river rapids. We were put together with the only other Caucasians in the big group as well as an older Chinese couple. Gina (of the Chinese couple) immediately asked everyone if they had done this before. She was clearly worried that this was going to be dangerous and her husband was making her do this. We all piled onto our raft after a small bit of instruction and Russ and I were in front…we were ready for a ride! We went over a very small rapid and we hear a shrieking noise from behind Russ. At that moment, Gina announces to the raft, “I’m a screamer.” Poor Russ would need earplugs the rest of the trip. There were a few good swimming holes along the way. Everyone would jump off and float down the river cooling down before the next rapids. At this time we picked up a hitch hiker…a middle age Indian man that seemed to float away from his boat and was precariously floating towards rapids without his raft in site. We pulled him in and gave him a seat in the front between Russ and I. Upon approaching a rapid, our guide would always give us the run down of what to expect and the percentage likelihood that we would capsize. He would give us 2 options…a route that we would have a 50% chance of capsizing, and a safer route and then he’d survey the raft on which we would prefer. All of a sudden out of nowhere, Gina yells – “let’s go for capsizing!”…what’s this from the woman who was scared to death a moment ago and screams bloody murder every time we rock the boat. What a nutcase! As a group we always ended up picking the more difficult route. As we took off through the rapids, the Indian hitch hiker sat up on the front of the raft hanging his feet over the front and hanging on to the rope like he’s riding a bull. He starts to hoot and holler like a cowboy, “Yeeeeehaaawwww” screamed in an Indian accent! He was bounced around so much that his pants were falling off – he had some serious plumber crack! I was laughing so hard at him that I could barely paddle! He told us later that he grew up on a cow farm…perfect. I was ready to take him to Texas to ride a mechanical bull…he would have been great at it! We made it through most of the rapids in tact – however we did lose Russ once…we were jostled so much in the front that he fell out and I fell off my perch onto the raft bottom…it was great fun! Between Gina, and the Indian Cowboy…it was a blast. We had the oldest, whitest boat, but we definitely had the most fun! I finally got some much needed lunch once we got off the raft and then we started the long commute back to Kota Kinnabalu. It was a short rafting time – but it was packed full of laughs.

The next night we went on a river safari – once again a 2 hour bus ride out of Kinabalu. We went to go to go see the Proboscis monkeys which are only found in Borneo. They are these funny looking monkeys that are large, and have a distinctive large nose and big pot belly. They look so ugly they are cute. Ever since the Balinese monkey jumped me and took my earring, I’ve been trying to stay away from monkeys , however tonight – I was in search of them! We took off under the cover of ominous skies and went in search of the big noses! I was hoping that they would be easy to spot and I had my telephoto lens poised to get a great close up – however my hopes of a great tight shot of their funny faces was dashed when I realized that even my telephoto lens couldn’t get close enough. We did see plenty of the Proboscis monkeys – however they were high up in the trees and rather shy. Maybe I should have tried to lure them out with a shiny earring. We raced around the river for 2 hours looking at monkeys, and looking for crocodiles. Once the sun went under, we were treated to a strange site, Christmas lights blinking wildly in the trees. However, these were natural Christmas lights, they were fire flies. Growing up in the Midwest I had seen many fireflies, like most kids I used to catch them and put them in jars, take them in room at night and fall asleep with my natural nightlight. However these Borneo fire flies were different, they were the size of gnats, and instead of a long flash, they had a very short flash and would blink in unison in the trees. There were thousands of them – coordinated like a symphony.

Our last bit of adventure included a trip to a secluded beach off the coast of Borneo called Pulau Tiga. This wasn’t just any island, this was the island that they filmed the first ever Survivor! I was excited to see it and get a feel for what they experienced – climate and landscape. However, it was also a chance to work on my tan and catch up on reading. The island resort (if you can call it that) was small, no frills, and rather empty. We had the whole beach to ourselves. Once again – the place seemed to be about 50% of the way there when it came to service and it included a long commute. We took a 2 hour car ride, and then a boat to the island – I found myself daydreaming about the first Survivor cast, wondering if they knew how much they would change television viewing for the next 6 years. When we arrived at the dock, a young boy came to greet the boat. We threw our bags onto the dock. The boy picked up Russ’s backpack and offered to take it – that left me lugging a big suitcase and a backpack. I was more than a little peeved that the boy didn’t even offer to take the suitcase – but that’s fine – I’m a strong, independent woman – I’ll let it slide this time. He took us to the lodge and gave us our complimentary welcome drink (no booze – just juice…bummer). He told us about the island and gave us a little map of the trails. I asked him where the show Survivor had been filmed (after all – they used the Survivor reference in their marketing material), and he just looked at me blankly – he said that he didn’t know. I also asked the woman at the front desk – and she said that she didn’t know. Russ and I looked at each other in confusion thinking the same thing – how can you market yourself as the first Survivor Island and then not know anything about it?! The young boy then showed us to our bungalow and once again took Russ’s bag and left me carrying mine. Russ, being the gentleman that he was, offered to carry mine – but my pride got the better of me and I told him I could get it myself. I lugged my stuff to the bungalow 400 meters away and Russ followed the boy, I was more than a little miffed when Russ gave him a tip!

Remember that episode of the Brady Bunch where Peter had a science experiment and built a mud volcano that proceeded to blow up inside the house? We had heard from other tourists that the island contained a mud volcano. Not a small science experiment, but a real one that you could get into – a crude spa of sorts. However – there was a catch to it – you had to walk 1 km to get to the volcano in the middle of the island, and there was no running water around the volcano – just a little jungle trail that led back out a km to the ocean where you could wash off. We decided that we would go check it out, we found it on the map and took off. We had planned on only one of us going in at a time as the other one would have to carry our personal belongings else everything would be covered in mud. When we got to the volcano – there was a small structure there – we looked at it and found that it was the makings of a nice set of outdoor showers to wash off at – however – the structure was there – but there was no water – just a little facet on the side of the building. Once again – it was 50% done – and no one seemed to be in any hurry to complete it. We put all of our stuff on the ground near the volcano and Russ took the plunge. It was about 5 ft. deep – but the thick mud was buoyant so you would float and couldn’t touch the bottom. I was shooting pictures like the paparazzi and then Russ all of a sudden surprised me…without warning – he went under…completely under the muddy sludge as if it were a swimming pool. I don’t think he thought this through too well as when he came back up – he had no way to wipe his eyes or get it out of his mouth or ears as his hands were covered in mud! He eventually cleared his eyes and could see again – but he was picking mud out of every crevice for the rest of the day! After playing in the bubbling mud he had to make the long walk back to the ocean. When you are covered in mud – everything sticks to you, leaves, twigs, ants, flies…it’s not pretty. He blended into the trail camouflaged with leaves. When we finally got through the long walk I dared him to go inside the lodge covered in mud – he got as close as the stairs. He looked like one of the blue man group actors…yet he was gray. He washed off in the ocean and was continuing to find mud in his ears 7 hrs later!

The next day I decided that I needed to try this mud volcano experience – so once again we made the long walk in the jungle to the mud pit. I had a love/hate relationship with the mud volcano – I didn’t really want to go in, however I felt like I should try it. I thought about how when I was a little girl I would love to make mud pies in our backyard. I would work on them for hours, getting just the right consistency. Photo: I’m Fabulous!!! I would decorate them with leaves and twigs and take it to my mom showing off my proud ‘baking skills’. I told myself that this was no different than making a mud pie…so I went into the gray/green sludge. It was grainy and thick. It was full of leaves and twigs (at least that’s what I told myself the solid objects were) – the whole thing generally grossed me out. I guess I liked making mud pies, however I don’t know that I liked being in a mud pie! I knew that I wasn’t brave enough to go underneath the mud as Russ did – but I floated around in it for a while. It’s a weird feeling to lay back and have the mud hold you up – you couldn’t have sunk if you tried. It was a good experience…and my skin felt softer than ever – and it was free! What a great spa value!

Russ and I enjoyed our last night in Kinabalu by the harbor. We celebrated with a fresh coconut at the market (I would have loved a little Rum in mine!) Borneo met my expectations, my trip to ‘wild’ Borneo was complete. I didn’t have to pick leeches off of my legs, but I still felt tough having survived the white water rafting and mud volcano. I may not ever be an adventure racer, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not adventurous!

Can you Spare a Square?

Sherry — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 13:12:03 +0000

Night Market in Mae Hong Son

View ‘Food of Thailand’ Photography

View snapshots of the Spicy Adventures

Throughout my adult life I have strived for change and trying different things. I hate doing the same thing twice or going to the same place twice – I’d rather have a bikini wax than do something that I’ve already done…been there…done that. However – I have a few weird exceptions to the ‘must have change’ rule – foods. I’m not talking all foods, however every so often something I ate clicks my brain into ‘repeat mode’ and I can’t get enough of it. I had a couple of things in NYC that I was in a rut with – the Signature Salad from Cosi and the Chicken Parm from Vinnies…over and over – they never disappointed (and I miss them both!). In Thailand it was Spicy Papaya Salad that was my ‘can’t get enough of it’ food. We made it at cooking school and I was hooked! Every day Emily and I would order some. The best thing is that you could get it off the street at any vendor! I would get braver and braver with the spiciness factor when ordering. There was something very addicting about the spices in Thailand. I normally don’t love spicy food – but in Thailand – I found myself craving it! In Thailand, there are different levels of spiciness in which food is made. There’s food made for Caucasians and then there’s Thai food. The food made for Caucasians have the same names as the Thai food, but it’s missing one thing – the true Thai spice. Sure – you can order curry and it will even say on the menu that it’s spicy, and it will even taste rather spicy to our bland palettes. You will be completely satisfied thinking that you are eating real Thai food…but you aren’t. They’ve really left out about 75% of the spice/chillis that they put in curry for Thai people. The kind of spice that clears your sinuses in mere seconds (they should put chillis in Sudafed – it would be much more effective). It leaves your lips and tongue numb and it leaves your stomach in a knotty, nauseous mess a few hours after eating. This is real Thai food. At restaurants they call this Thai Spicy, if you want this intoxicating authentic experience – you order your curry ‘Thai spicy’ and know that you are getting authentic Thai food. However – one major warning…bring your own napkins.

Photo: Me and my tiny napkin I have to refer back to a Sienfeld episode on this…Can you Spare a Square. In Sienfeld they were talking about toilet paper – however in Thailand – I’m talking about a napkin. Thailand has this weird mix – the spiciest food, and the smallest napkins…this is not a good combination! The little stack of paper napkins would be on each dinner table…but when you went to pull them out to try to plug up your gushing sinuses, you realized that they were no bigger than a square of toilet paper AND they were one ply! I couldn’t understand this…were they so budget conscience that they didn’t want people wasting them? Did Thai people have some way of eating without needing to use a napkin? It baffled both Emily and I for weeks. We would eat our food Thai spicy and have a little mountain of crumpled up napkins at our table…it was kind of embarrassing…but better than letting our sinuses drip all over our food!

Emily and I were lucky – we were introduced to the concept of Thai Spicy on our Hill Tribe Trek with our guide Hay. He was so excited to cook for us because we were willing to try anything and we said that we wanted to eat like the locals eat. After the Hill Tribe Trek – we were no longer satisfied with eating at tourist places – we were on a quest – a quest for the real Thai food. However – there were a few problems with this quest – it meant that we needed to bring our own napkins, and we needed stomachs of teflon! We knew that the real authentic food was at the night markets, the vendors cooking food on the streets – but all ‘western’ tour guides tend to steer you away from these places. They serve raw vegetables, they wash the veggies in their local water, they have questionable health standards…yadda, yadda, yadda. Emily was blessed with a teflon stomach already, she would be just fine. I felt that over my last 4 months of travel, my stomach was slowly being trained. Trained to fight off evil bacteria that our normal US standards would frown upon. At least I told myself this knowing that what I was really doing was playing Russian Roulette with my intestines. However my feeling is that if you want to experience a different culture, then you have to eat the food.

With this new food mission, Emily and I left Chiang Mai and headed towards Pai. We decided to take a bus to Pai as our Lonely Planet said that it was the way to get to there. Since we hadn’t gotten any pre-arranged tickets, we decided to head down to the bus station in the morning and try to catch a local bus for the 4 hr. drive to Pai. However – as usual when traveling – getting there is never easy. We got a bus ticket for 70 Baht…about $2US…no air conditioning…joy. We did get 2 of the last 4 tickets – hurray! In all of my travels to date – this was the most authentic overland travel I had done. A local bus to Pai…what an experience. Photo: Foot space on the bus

We were crammed into the bus like sardines with the locals…literally there was no room to even put my feet. Luckily were were in the front seats so that gave us a little more knee space, however that also meant that my feat were propped up on the radiator fluid bottle. They even let people sit in the front window on top of the engine cover (inside). It reminded me of a packed subway that you crowded into – yet it wasn’t a 15 minute ride…it was a 4 hr. ride. Pai is in the mountains – so we were told that they road there was very curvy – Dramamine to the rescue! At times – I honestly didn’t think that the bus would make it up the hill…the driver would downshift into first gear and we would crawl up the hills – I could have walked faster…I’m not joking. At least the Dramamine made me drowsy – so I was in this nap like state the whole time. Emily actually fell asleep and nearly fell out of her chair into the isle (where people were sitting) when we went around one of the many hairpin turns! It was quite the ride. Of course we did find out that many people pay $200 baht and simply take a minivan with air conditioning to Pai in a mere 3 hrs..the Lonely Planet let us down on this one…but that’s ok – we had the ride of a lifetime!

Utopai is what many people called this town…which was pretty accurate. It was beatnik and full of coffee shops, little galleries, live music, bars, Thai tourists, and a night market (I could use a papaya salad after that bus ride!) It was Thailand’s version of the East Village in NYC. I loved the fact that there were so many tourists here – mainly because they were mainly Thai young people. There were very few Caucasians and everyones English was a bit choppy which finally forced me to learn ‘hello’ and ‘Thank you’ in Thai. The staples of any language! There were so many things I liked about this town – one was the prices. A typical menu of prices in Pai:

Cottage with hot shower – $10
Bottle of water – $.30
Beer $1
1 hour massage $5
Load of laundry – $1
Dinner and drinks for two – $7

Photo: Pancake Lady at night market
I honestly never wanted to leave Pai! We did end up staying an extra day in there because the white water rafting that we had planned to do was not really in season – not enough water. So instead of trying to float down a shallow river for 2 days – we decided to hang out in budget utopai. I would go running in the early mornings and people would look at me as if I was crazy – or sometimes they would cheer me on by clapping as I went by! I would write during the day and work on photography – it actually felt like a vacation of sorts! Every night we would go out and try new food – sometimes in restaurants, but more often than not – on the streets. I was moving one step closer to a teflon stomach. I was still more timid than Emily – but between us we would try many new things – including our old favorite – papaya salad. We would take our little one-ply napkins and wander down the street looking for new food blowing our noses like wimpy foreigners.

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Photo: Noodles at the night market
We decided to head to Mai Hong Son next – a little town close to the border of Burma. Honestly the main reason why we went there was because we had booked a plane tickets out of there to get to Bangkok – so we went down to the local bus station and tried to figure out the best way to make the 4 hour ride to Mae Hong Son. This time we had wised up…we asked about a mini-van…sure enough – for $200 Baht we could get a air conditioned minivan to take us there…luxury! We got a little room at Friend House that literally had a mattress on the floor and a window…ok – it’s not the best – but it was only one night and it was clean…AND it was 150 Baht ($5 US). The fact that I was excited to sleep on a mattress on the floor with an outdoor toilet for $5 is a bit disturbing to me…I think I’m turning into my parents. However – there is something intoxicating about getting a good deal…and this sure was it! We went looking around the town and a couple of young girls came up to us giggling – and asked in their best broken English if they could interview us for a school assignment. We had to answer all kinds of questions about where we were from, what our nickname was (I’ll leave that a secret), why we came to Mae Hong Son, what our favorite Thai food was (ok – that was a no brainer), and then they had to take a picture of us. So it’s fun to think that in some classroom in Mae Hong Son kids are discussing Sherry Ott from New York City…ha! We then stumbled across the Mae Hong Son night market…an eating extravaganza!!! This market was set by the lake in the center of town and it was truly amazing. We just walked by stand after stand in awe of this yummy looking food. Most of the time we were wondering what it was…and trying to remember what stalls we wanted to come back to! They had little short tables set up on the grass along the lake that you could sit and eat at. We found someone that spoke some English and asked them about some of the food – but mainly we just tried what looked good to us – and of course we had papaya salad…the spiciest yet! I had been eying the meatball skewers back in Pai – and I finally decided to try them here. I asked for the chicken ones – yet I really have no idea if he understood me – so who knows what I ate. He asked me if I wanted sauce…’sure…I’ll take the sauce’. Of course the sauce was Thai spicy…next I needed a beer and a mound of napkins! It was probably the best food Emily and I had at a night market – we had a wonderful night – and used about 100 single-ply napkins! The next morning we got up and visited a local temple on the hill. It was a foggy morning which made for great photography of the white temple. We even met some tourists there that insisted on us getting a picture with them and their temple offerings.
Photo: Temple at dusk

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Our next major stop on the food tour was Kanchanaburi which was in central/west Thailand. It is most famous for the Bridge over the River Kwai. Of course I had never seen the movie, but was eager to learn more about it. We arrived in Kanchanburi by bus – another long ride but with AC and plenty of bugs. We walked around the town and found some spicy dinner, then found a great bar that was showing outdoor movies on a big screen! We watched Narnia under the stars that night! We loved it so much we met the owner of the bar and he let us pick out the movies for the next night. The next day we rented little bikes with big baskets and biked all over Kanchanaburi to see the World War II Cemetery, the Railway museum and the bridge itself. I’m certainly no history expert…in fact I’m probably below normal when it comes to my knowledge of WWII. However what little I did retain about it, it was mainly about the European battles, and dealings – not the Asian history about WWII. I was captivated by this little town and the history there. The bridge was just one part of a much larger story about the railway that was built between Thailand and Burma by WWII POW’s. It was fascinating and sobering. The museum there was top notch – very educational, and not to be missed. Emily and I both were blown away by what we learned and we both had a big knot in our stomachs after seeing the pictures and hearing the stories and visiting the cemetery. I think the whole experience took us by surprise – we learned a lot that day. Cycling back from the bridge, we were ready for lunch. I let Emily pick the lunch spot as she had been eying many places as we biked to the bridge. She chose one of the road side ‘restaurants’ that simply had pots of food out front and a few seats inside away from the sun. I can safely say that we were the only tourists that stopped there that whole week. The ladies warned us a few times about the fact that it was spicy – but we barged ahead. We left our customary stack of napkins, and lost the feeling in our lips.

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Later that afternoon we embarked on an adventure that was highly recommended by one of Emily’s friends. We went to see and pet live tigers at a temple run by monks. See…this would intrigue you too – right? We took off in a little truck taxi with about 8 other people…crammed in the back of a truck for 40 minutes wasn’t the best – but to pet live tigers…well – I could put up with anything! We got there and realized that Emily was wearing the wrong color…red. Apparently the tigers don’t like red (or maybe they like it too much…who knows), so they gave her a white shirt to wear and off we went. We bought our tickets and on the back of the ticket there was a disclaimer that we had to sign…the basic – “you are going to be seeing live tigers which is inherently dangerous. We take no responsibility for your safety”. Now – this may not seem unusual to you as in the US we would expect to sign a waiver of sorts when doing something dangerous. The weird thing about this was that in my 4 months of traveling and dangerous things that I’ve done – this was the first place that actually had a waiver. It kind of freaked me out! I actually had to stop and think for a second…damn…this could be dangerous. For a brief second – thoughts of Siegfried and Roy came to mind…tigers do attack – however, you only live once…so in we went!
Sure enough – there were about 10 big tigers in a canyon manned by monks and volunteers of sorts. I honestly didn’t really understand why the monks had these tigers, but I was certainly excited to pet them. We got in line and realized that this tiger petting was a fine oiled, deadly machine. They made you take off any sunglasses, purse, or hat that you were wearing – damn these tigers were finicky. You would get two volunteers assigned to you, one that took your camera from you to take pictures, and one that took your hand, held it and led you around to the tigers. They would not say anything to you, just hold your hand – it was all very creepy. They would sit you down behind a tiger and put your hand on the tiger’s back, soon the paparazzi would start to take a bunch of photos of you and the tiger. The guide would take your hand again and lead you to another tiger….more paparazzi, and this continues for about 4 tigers before they took you back to the line and gave you your camera back. You never exchanged any words with the person – it was really strange. but – I got my pictures…and that’s what I risked life and limb for…the perfect shot!

That night Emily and I went to the night market in Kanchanabur for some papaya salad and meatballs – and any new delights that we could find. There we came across something that we had never seen at any night market before…insects. I’m not talking about the ones flying around…but I’m talking about ones to eat! Photo: The dinner bugs…tastey
As I peered into a pile of fried grasshoppers, locusts, and worms – I realized – I had met my limit. I couldn’t eat the bugs. There would never be enough napkins in this market for me if I ate a bug. However – Emily did not disappoint….she kept staring at them, going by the stand over and over, finally hovering by the stand. I finally just said…”Go ahead – you know you want to try it…just do it”. There were many people coming up to the stand getting a whole bag of mixed bugs for dinner – however Emily just wanted to try one. We gave the lady 1 Baht and she gave Emily a Locust looking bug – about 3 inches long. I readied the camera and she bit…chewed for a bit – and said that it was ok. However – she wasn’t ready to get a bag for dinner! We got our other food, sat on a curb and ate our spicy food with our little napkin – proud of ourselves for being the only Caucasians at the market! We ended the night with wine, ice cream, cookie crisp cereal and a outdoor movie at the bar. What a great town!

Our whirlwind eating tour was coming to an end. We were so proud of ourselves for trying everything, eating all of the places the guidebooks tell you not to eat, and loving every minutes of it. I wanted to educate everyone on the fact that sometimes you need to ignore the guidebook advice and just do what feels right. Try new things….if you are in Thailand – try the papaya salad – Thai spicy! But most importantly…we finally learned why you only get a little one-ply napkin in Thailand. We were told that the Thai people feel that it’s distasteful to wipe your face with a napkin and then put it back in your lap to use again. In essence – you are reusing a dirty napkin that way. They believe that napkins are for a one time use – and you can use how ever many you want! So – don’t be afraid to sit at your table in Thailand piling up a stack of napkins the size of Kilimanjaro…it’s customary! Happy Eating!

Photo: Emily at one with her tiny napkin!

The Night of the Rat – Chiang Mai Adventures

Sherry — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 07:16:19 +0000

Eye of the Dragon

View Thailand Hill Tribe Photography

View Chiang Mai snapshots

I have arrived in Thailand – ready to kick off the new year with some new countries to discover. My friend Emily from NYC has decided to come join me for a few weeks in Thailand! I’ve never actually traveled with Emily before, and in fact, we never really went out much in NYC together – however we had two major things in common…running and traveling. Emily is a part of my regular running group in NY and I met her through running many early mornings in Central Park before work. Through those runs I came to find out that she also shared a love of travel with me. She had traveled extensively when she was younger and had made many trips to South America. When I told her about my around the world adventure – she immediately said that she wanted to come meet me somewhere along the way. So – here she is – after a 20+ hour plane flight – ready to explore with me and build upon our friendship.

We met in Chiang Mai ready to be immersed in a new culture. Unlike many of my other friends, Emily was game for roughing it through Thailand – we both really wanted to get off the beaten path and see Thai people and country side. That’s why we decided to start with Northern Thailand. We had seen beaches before and we knew that the beaches of southern Thailand were supposed to be gorgeous – but we wanted to challenge ourselves a bit more. When Emily got to Chiang Mai she was fighting off jet lag – but we decided that we would go to see a temple for a little afternoon outing. We took a little Songtaew (Converted Pick up trucks with twin rows of seats in the back ply the main routes looking for passengers ) to Phrathat Doi Suthep and quickly realized that the Jewish girl from NY and the Lutheran girl from the midwest really knew nothing about Buddhism! We looked around the temple in wonder, watching the monks throw water on people, watching the people ring hundreds of bells – but had no idea why any of this was happening. We took note of all of our questions figuring that we would need to get them answered sometime during out trip.

Boy with Gun

Our hotel that we stayed at in Chiang Mai was big, clean, and lovely – then only downside was that it was outside of the town center. Of course we didn’t really realize this was a problem until we went to the town center and then tried to catch a taxi back to the hotel. We tried to flag down a cab NY style and asked them to take us to the Green Lake Resort. We received a blank stare. We also quickly realized that unlike all of the other countries that I’ve been to – not many people knew English. I showed them the address and they would say “too far” and leave us! After going through this many times, we started getting worried about how we would get back to the hotel as we didn’t even have a good map or the name of the hotel in Thai. Finally, a songtaew driver who had no one in his truck said ok – but he was going to charge us 5 times as much as it cost us to get into town. We agreed…after all – 5 times as much still meant that it was under $10…a bargain in NY cab terms! We should’ve known that it wouldn’t go smoothly, it’s not like NY where you just give them the address and the cross st. and zoom off. Even with the address and a very rough map he didn’t know where it was – so he made me sit in front with him to help show him the way. One problem – I had no idea where it was either! He spoke a small amount of English – so we tried to hack our way through a conversation about the location. I happened to have the hotel phone number so he called on his hand phone and after a 5 minute conversation with them he said “I know where is…no worry”. I was skeptical – but said ok feeling somewhat relieved. However, at this point I realized why he didn’t have any other passengers in his truck – he was a terrible driver!

I honestly don’t think the taxi driver could see – we’d pull out in front of traffic, we’d about hit the motor scooters, I tried not to look! The only thing that comforted me was that we couldn’t get hurt too badly because he was only going a max of 15 mph! About 40 minutes later, we made it to the hotel after many close calls and much nervous laughter. I had obviously been docile in Singapore too long – I forgot one of the main rules of travel in another country…always bring a map with address and phone number of where you want to go (even better if you can get this written in the language of the country!) . Needless to say – when we did arrive at the hotel – we needed a drink!

We had decided to do a hill tribe trek out of Chiang Mai. We hired a guide through Wayfayers Travel and did their 3 day, 2 night hill tribe tour. This meant that we would not only be trekking to the tribes in the mountains near Burma, but we would also be staying with them – in their villages for 2 nights! What a great way to really intermix with locals! We met our guide, Hay, and immediately fell in love with him. He was so kind and eager to answer all of our questions. During the 2 hour drive to the trekking start point – we peppered him with questions. We were able to get all of our questions about Buddhism answered – as well as learn about the tribes that we would be staying with. So – for the record – people ring bells at a Buddhist temple for good luck. We also learned about the monks and their lives in the temple. It was all quite fascinating and very different from any religion I had encountered so far in my travels. When we met Hay the night before to talk about the Trek, he asked us what kind of food we’d like to eat on the Trek. We enthusiastically told him “Anything that is local – we want to try it all!” His face immediately lit up – “Really?” He said. “Yes – we want to see and taste what the locals eat!” One of the first things I learned about Emily is that she’ll eat anything…put it in front of her and she’ll try it. A crazy combination of things – sugar, spicy peppers, pineapple, vinegar all mixed together – no problem. The spicier the better for her. I can only imagine that her stomach is made of Teflon or something!

We had planned on visiting a number of different hill tribes – each had a different religion and came from different countries originally. The trekking wasn’t necessarily extremely strenuous – but you certainly did work up a sweat as you traversed up and down hills and through the tall, dry grass that went above my head in some places! Luckily, Hay didn’t know what a tick was – so I felt that I was safe as I walked through the shoulder high grass!

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Photo: Karen tribe girl
A porter, Chau Dok, from one of the Karen tribes walked with us and carried our extra food and sleeping bags – so there were 4 of us total. Hay and Chau Dok would sing Thai songs and we would stop for break and shoot slingshots…it was really fun! My sling shot skill had diminished since my childhood, however I didn’t do half bad when aiming at targets! Trekking also meant that I was also back to peeing within nature…or as Hay would refer to it “Going to Phi Phi Island” (there is an island in the south of Thailand called Koh Phi Phi prounounced koh pee pee). When we were close to the first overnight village, a teenage boy from the village passed by us carrying a long muscat looking gun of sorts. Honestly – it looked like something from civil war times! I was a bit surprised to see this and asked Hay why he was carrying a gun. Hay told us that the boy was going out to hunt rat…yup, rat. Apparently rat is a main food staple on the Karen Tribe’s diet. I told Hay that if he wanted to catch rat, he should come hunting in the NYC subway, however I don’t think they will allow the gun…at least that’s how it was when I left!

Our first overnight was with the Karen Tribe. They were from Burma and had been in Thailand for over 100 years now. They were Christian – which I found surprising since Buddhism was very strong here. Obviously some missionary got to them years ago! The village had about 150 people living in it. It had a very small school and I think the livestock outnumbered the people in the village! There were pigs, dogs, cats, cows, chickens and the ever popular alarm clock…the rooster. We were shown our accommodations – which were pleasant enough. We had a little hut to sleep in off the ground, there was a ‘toilet’ and a ’shower’. I say these terms loosely because the toilet was a typical Asian ’squatty potty’ and the shower was a bucket of water and a facet coming out of the ground. What made them a ‘toilet’ and a ’shower’ was the fact that they had built a little bamboo shelter around them – so they were private for the most part. There’s nothing like taking a shower with cold water a bucket and a ladle…but of course I tried…brrrrrr.
Photo: Emily eating with the animals!
The family that was hosting us was very nice – their names were Mommie and Daddie…ok – these weren’t their real names – but that’s what they wanted to go by…fine with me as it was easy to remember. They lived in a one room hut with dirt ground as the floor. This was their kitchen, and bedroom (they slept 6 people in there!) and I guess their living room was really outside around the fire pit! Needless to say…this was simple living! Hay started to work away in the kitchen cooking us up a Thai feast, so we went walking around the village to take pictures and see some more of the tribe. As we walked around amongst the pigs and chickens, the people were out cutting up bamboo, getting food for the animals, weaving cloth, and the kids were playing with an old rice sack having a sack race. It was all pretty surreal to me. Most of these people never left their village – and they never planned to leave in the future…they were content. They did have a few modern things such as the pipes carrying water from the stream, one tv in the village, solar electricity (very little), and I saw one satellite hanging on the side of a bamboo hut…pretty humorous. However – I want to stress that even through they had some modern things, this was a very simple life – one that we are not at all accustomed to.

Hay called us for dinner and we sat outside amongst the various animals and were treated to a feast of wonderful food! It was so spicy that my sinuses were quickly awakened and left me wondering why I didn’t bring more Kleenex along! Soon Hay came out all excited, jumping around with a big smile on his face…he said “Do you want to see what the family is eating for dinner?” Of course we did! He took us over to Mommie who was preparing Frog Soup. Basically – all I saw was a dishpan of live frogs, and fish – not too appetizing – but they seemed pretty excited about it. Then he took us to another home and asked us again – do you really want to see this? Yes – we do! He unwrapped some banana leaves and there they were…rats, freshly roasted! Apparently – this was quite a treat, fresh rat…3 of them! They were actually quite small for a rat – they looked more like mice if you ask me. Photo: The rats
I told them that NYC had really LARGE rats and I showed them the size with my hands! Their eyes lit up and Daddie asked me in complete seriousness “Do they eat the rat?” “Uh…no” I said.

We sat around the fire that night with Mommie and Daddie and various other people while Hey told us about the culture of courting in the Karen tribe. This is one of my favorite things to learn about as I travel – relationships and dating. I always ask about how people met their spouse, if they dated, and how old they are when they get married, etc.. I find that it is so simple in other countries, yet in the westernized world that we live in…it is extremely complicated – then again…maybe I just make it complicated! A thought to be pondered at another time! The Karen tribe do not typically marry within their village – they marry other Karen tribe members in neighboring villages. They meet when they are young when attending a funeral in one of the villages. The elders first go to the funeral and sing various songs and go through various rituals around the funeral, and then the younger/teenager kids come and sing the same songs and basically flirt. Photo: Girls going to school
Hay calls it “giving the sweet eyes” – I call it flirting. The funny thing is that the girls make the first move (which maybe isn’t so bad) by giving the boys ’sweet eyes’ and then the boys show if they are interested. They dance, they sing, they visit each others parents, and then they get married…all of this after maybe a month of ‘courting’. Cows are exchanged, vows are exchanged, and one of them moves into the others village…simple. Maybe I need to learn how to give ’sweet eyes’.

As we were talking about this dating ritual – another person came up to Hay with a bowl and said something to him. He looked at us and said “They want to know if you’d like to taste the rat” Of course Emily quickly answered “Yes!” I hesitated a bit…wondering if I really had the guts to eat a rat. I thought of all of the rats I had seen in the subway in NYC, I thought about the guinea pig I ate in Peru, I thought about what my friend and family would think when I told them that I ate a rat. I knew that if I ate it, people would really think I had lost my mind, however, I slowly decided…you only live once…I’ll try it. They handed around the bowl and instructed us to take a leg…yes – a little rat leg to nibble on…how appetizing. I made sure that I had water nearby…just in case. I looked at Emily’s reaction – she didn’t die…so I tried mine. I turned off my head lamp so that I couldn’t really see the skin that seemed to be a greenish color, and I nibbled on the meat on the bone. Surprise…it wasn’t half bad. I can hardly believe that I’m saying this – but it was actually kind of tasty. Mental note – when I go back to NYC and can’t find a job – I guess I can always eat rat to survive. It’s always good to have a backup plan! That night I was a little on edge wondering how my stomach was going to like the rat – but it seemed at one with the rat – so I slept fine. Well – as fine as you can on a bamboo floor, a sleeping bag, and the sounds of pigs, and roosters underneath your hut. Just another normal day in my travels.

Day two trekking was much harder, we went through more villages, more hills, and finally stopped for lunch. I decided to simply eat what Hay prepared for us…no crazy stuff – I didn’t want to risk a terrible toilet story. However ‘I’ll-eat-anything-Emily’ decided she would have a beer to cool down. Next she tried sardines, raw chili peppers and raw garlic…yes – raw garlic, topping it off with raw lemon grass root. Not the combination of food I would choose – but she loved it – as she helped herself to seconds! That afternoon we didn’t have to trek, instead we were taken by elephant to the next village. We got up on the wobbly elephant and started down the trail. About 4 minutes into the slow, wobbly ride Emily said “I think I’m elephant sick” I said “No, I think you are sardines, garlic, and beer sick!!”. She made it through the ride – but it was rather touch and go.

As soon as we made it to the next tribe, she went inside the hut and took a much needed nap! I took my bucket shower and went out to explore the village. We were staying at a Palong tribe this night. They were from Burma and had arrived 27 years ago (rather recent in the scheme of things). They were Buddhist and there were about 200 people in the village. They had a much more distinctive dress and look to them. They were more plump and extremely jovial.
They mainly made money on agriculture and we came across many of them in the field harvesting their beans by hand. That night, I ate another yummy Thai meal that Hay made and Emily took it easy. We sat around the fire with our host, Pong, and his family. We laughed all
night as we shared stories in broken English. Pong wanted us to sing songs – so I was able to sing a few rounds of Jingle Bells and the Hokey Poky. He even gave us a flashlight to use as a microphone…we were the next Palong Idol for sure!
Photo: Teenage boys in the Palong Tribe – hangin’ out on the corner

The next morning we took off on our final leg of the trek and then got on a bamboo raft to float down the river for a while – kind of like a gondola in Venice! Hay picked us up with our driver at the end of the rafting and took us for our final lunch. We went into the closest town and he agreed to take us to an authentic Thai restaurant…a place where only locals go. He was so excited that we wanted to really experience real Thai food and not the European version that many of the tourists have (it’s Thai – but not nearly as spicy). He took us for sticky rice…yum! I have had sticky rice many times in NYC…however I never had the real Thai version before. Photo: Me eating with my hands
We got to the little roadside restaurant/hut and sat down. They brought us a number of soupy, meat dishes, veggies, and little individual containers of sticky rice. Hay showed us how to simply eat it as the locals do – with our hands! He showed us how to roll up a small amount of rice in a ball and then flatten it out kind of like a spoon – then you would pick up the meat mixtures with the rice and your thumb (on the same hand) and eat it! It was wonderful…and really had my sinuses going…it was hot! Hay drove us back to Chang Mai and we sadly said goodbye. We really developed a great relationship with him – he was definitely one of my favorite guides in my travels so far – he really made the experience for us. We could ask him anything…and we did. He was so happy that we wanted to really experience the culture and embrace our surroundings. I think he was most happy that we ate the rat that was offered to us! He even showed me his journal (in Thai script) where he wrote about us eating the rat. I think he’ll remember the women from NYC for a while!

Photo: Eggs at the market. Pink ones are 100 days old…a delicacy.
The next day we went to Chiang Mai to take a cooking class. We went to the local market with our teachers and learned about Asian produce and meat. It actually was great as I have cooked plenty of Thai food before – but I never really knew why you did some of the things in the order directed – now it actually made sense! We went to the suburbs of Chiang Mai to the chef’s house. It was a big organization – there were about 25 of us and the school was beautiful. The chef seemed to be the Emerel of Thailand…very famous and very full of himself! Regardless – we learned how to use the wok properly, make some amazing curries, soup, and salads. We ate everything we made and were exhausted by the end of the day! For all of my friends in NY – when I come back – I will cook you up a Thai feast…don’t worry – I won’t serve rat – but it will be spicy!

That night we went to see a Thai boxing match! This was one of the things that was a ‘must do’ for me while I was in Thailand. Since I have a love of boxing myself – I really wanted to see what this popular Thai past-time was all about. We got tickets to a big fight and went to Kavila to watch 10 different fights that night.
There were many local people there and there was no translation into English. We were immediately ushered into the Caucasian section…it seemed like there were other people with our desire of seeing a local match…however they sat us all together for some reason! The matches were intense…I can’t believe how powerful their kicks were and how high they could kick their legs! The fighters were really thin, they were extremely lean…a body type that you wouldn’t think was an excellent fighter at first glance – however you quickly learned that the leaner they were the better they were!

During the rounds they would play this crazy Thai music from a live band – it seemed a bit distracting to me – but I guess the boxers didn’t mind. My favorite part was watching and hearing the fans as they reacted to various kicks and punches – it sounded as if we were at a bull fight in Spain…Ole! You could easily tell though that this was their passion…forget Soccer…this country was all about boxing.

Our time in and around Chiang Mai was great – full of good food, new friends, and some authentic (and crazy) experiences!

Do you have a cow? Lombok, Indonesia

Sherry — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 16:32:06 +0000

Boy in the Village

View Lombok Photography

View snapshots from Lombok

Happy New Year! My travels continue in 2007! Every year for the Christmas Holiday my sister and her family go somewhere in Southeast Asia for a week, lay on the beach and relax before the kids have to go back to school. I decided that I would go with them and continue my travel adventures with them for a week. After all – I’ve traveled alone, traveled with friends, so why not try traveling with a family! This year they chose Lombok, Indonesia – an island east of Bali. We stayed at a swank family villa near Senggigi with our own infinity pool, open air dining room, and complete with a ‘butler’. I must admit – I was a bit confused at first what we were supposed to do with a butler – but I quickly got used to it when he asked me if he could bring me a drink…I love the Indonesian exchange rate! I quickly came to realize that Lombok is very similar to Bali in economics, and landscape, however it is a little gem of an island that hasn’t really been discovered by tourism yet. In fact- this was probably as non-touristy/remote as I’ve been in my travels to date. There is only a small part of the island that is really geared towards tourists with hotels, shopping, tours, and restaurants – and the choices were miniscule compared to Bali. The rest of the island is just typical village life – with virtually no contact with tourists or western visitors. In addition, the people here were mainly Muslim as opposed to Bali where the majority was Hindu. I thought it was strange that two islands that are so so close together, so similar in size, can be so different religiously. This meant that I was back to getting woken up at 5AM by the call to prayers at the mosque. However the loud, large geckos (I mean large…like the size of your ARM!) on the roof weren’t too quiet either.

When we arrived at our house the girls went for a swim and then we had dinner. Our nighttime butler, Adi, took care of our every need. At dinner Lindsey surprisingly announced, “This is the best day of my life!” I was a little stunned as there aren’t too many moments in your life where you can be a part of someone’s ‘best day’ – I guess I felt pretty honored. I asked “Why?” She said, “Because I’m with my family and we have our own pool.” You have to love the life and mind of a 7 year old!

Photo: Woman selling banans at the market
The next day we decided that we would hire a chef for the day since we had this great big house and our own kitchen – and it was dirt-cheap. The chef came but didn’t speak any English so our daytime butler, Vicky, had to translate for us. Cyndi and I tried to pick out a traditional Indonesian meal. In addition to the chef cooking for us, we were also able to accompany him to the market to get all of the necessary items, and then watch him prepare it. All 6 of us plus Vicky and the chef got in a little Bemo (open air taxi/truck of sorts) and went into town to experience the big wet market.

Wet markets are open air markets that sell meat, poultry, and produce. They warned us before we got to the market that it would be muddy as there was a great deal of rain the other night and the market was outdoor…ok – no problem, a little mud wont hurt anyone…however the smell and the various goods for sale…well – that’s another story. We went to the market at about noon…this was considered really late for the locals, in fact many of the little shops and the fish market had already sold out or closed shop. For the locals, their days start by a trip to the market at 4AM. Then they typically take their purchases back to their village on some other part of the island and sell it at their village. Wholesaling was alive and well in Lombok.

I always love trips to markets…they never cease to amaze me. It’s so different than going to Fairway on the Upper West Side (which certainly has it’s own challenges). First off – you can’t have a weak stomach, and you can’t really be a vegetarian (you can – but you will be pretty unhappy). You have to be ok with seeing every type of animal part imaginable…with flies all over it. And the smell…all I can say is that you eventually get used to it – but it’s certainly not appetizing. You have to get out of your world of sterile health standards.
Finally, you always have to be prepared to see something that you never expected existed before – something that baffles your westernized eye. On this trip – it was colored chicks. They were selling little baby chicks – however the chicks were painted in bright colors. Pink, green, yellow, blue – they looked like someone tried to dye the Easter egg, but it leaked through and dyed the chick instead. It was a rainbow of tons of little chicks for sale on a bike cart. From what I could figure out, people bought the chicken to raise at their village. They would pick out a color so that they could tell them apart from one another. The Smiths had the blue chicks, the Johnsons had the pink chicks, the Andersons had the green chicks…you get my drift. Kind of like branding a cow I suppose. As the chicks grow into chickens – there still remains some of the bright color on the feathers, therefore you can also tell them apart as adults. At least this is the best explanation I could come up with….maybe they just thought the colors were pretty…who knows.

I think many of the people working in the market were as fascinated by us with our light colored skin, as much as I was fascinated by the colored chicks with their brightly colored feathers. We were quite entertaining for the locals. My nieces were troopers – they did a great job as they were surrounded by animal parts teaming with flies, with that foul odor of a butcher in warm weather, and the thick mud that we had to walk through. When I was 7 to 13 years old – I would have run out of that market screaming in tears!

Photo: Woman carrying rocks
The next day the ocean was too rough to go snorkeling so we hired a driver and guide to take us to see the waterfalls near the volcano on the island. Our guide’s name was Bahram, he lived in the village near our villa. We were driving for about an hour when we went through a small village and the road was closed down to one lane. There were hundreds of people all over the street and there was a man stopping traffic and taking donations. As our driver threw some spare change in a bucket, Bahram said that the village was building a new Mosque and taking donations. We drove by change collector and saw how the whole village came together to construct this mosque. It was like a barn raising in Amish country. Everyone was involved, men, women, kids, young, old. We immediately asked if we could stop and take pictures. Frank and I got out of the car armed with our cameras.
Yet I mostly stood there in awe of their ‘old fashioned’ production line. Women were carrying big buckets of rocks on their head to a group of young boys that were mixing them with water. On the other side of the street they were mixing the rocks with some cement like substance. They would dip a pail into the cement/rock like substance and one by one pass the bucket up the ladders to the people at the top to be poured into the frames made of bamboo. It reminded me of ants on an anthill just working away in a massive ant trail…it was amazing. Of course we stood out again like a white chick amongst neon colored chicks. Everyone stopped and either waved at us or simply looked at us like we had just dropped out of the sky with our white skin and strange cameras.

Our next stop was to feed the monkeys. Of course my nieces were excited about this – however I was less then thrilled to come face to face with a monkey again after my monkey assault in Bali a month ago! Bahram assured me that these were nice monkeys (I doubt there really is such a thing), he said that they would not jump on me or steal things like glasses or earrings. I was persuaded to come out of the car …if my 13-year-old niece can do it – so can I. After the monkey feeding we moved on to a stop in the rice fields to watch them harvest the rice. The women were busy gathering bunches of rice and tying them up. They would give them to the young men who would then proceed with pounding them against a wooden slab that was positioned over a large tarp.
The pounding action of the rice bundles would make the rice fall out of their grass encasements and fall onto the tarp. Once they were done harvesting, the rice on the tarp would be gathered up and taken to various homes to dry in the sun. When we stopped at rice field to take pictures, this older woman, about 50 years old, came up to the road and stared at us. Bethany went over to her and said hello. The woman proceeded to stare and touch Bethany’s arm. She would stroke Bethany’s arm because this was one of the few Caucasian people she had ever seen. She wanted to feel if our white skin was any different. I knew at this moment just how remote the island of Lombok was.

Next we arrived at the volcano site where we were to do a small trek to a couple of waterfalls. We had a new young guide named Adi that took us to the waterfalls. The trek to the first waterfall was pretty standard, down a bunch of steps, over a groomed trail, and to the base of the waterfall. We then went on to the second waterfall – which was definitely a more challenging walk. It felt as if we were working our way deep into the jungle, and we followed this elaborate system of waterway canals that would handle the large amounts of water during the rainy season and provide drinking water to the villages. The trail abruptly ended – but no waterfall was in site. Adi then told us to take off our shoes and follow him. We followed him over the rocks of the river snaking across from bank to bank along the shallow parts and all of a sudden it opened up onto a great waterfall! The travel by water was a bit treacherous, but we were able to get through it with only one scraped knee and a few tears. Adi told us that he would take us back on a different trail through more water if we were up for it. We were all in agreement, however when we got to the new trail – we realized that it wasn’t really a trail at all – but it was a tunnel with the water flowing through it. He assured us that it would only come up to our knees and that it was safe to walk through. I was a bit skeptical – but I figured that it must be a short cave – and you only live once. We entered the tunnel and Adi told us to keep our hands up on the ceiling to feel for protruding rocks so that we (the adults) didn’t hit our head. We entered the tunnel and quickly realized that it was pitch dark. I couldn’t see Cyndi who was only 2 feet in front of me – you just had to feel around on the tunnel walls to figure out where to go. Finally we saw some light – I thought that signaled the end of the tunnel – however I realized that it was only a little opening in the tunnel to let light in, but the tunnel continued to go on and on and on! At one point I was taking pictures of the pitch darkness with my flash on and when the flash would go off we realized that it ‘woke up’ the sleeping bats and they started to fly around us. I was petrified! I honestly didn’t want to know what else was in the tunnel with us…spiders, bats, and lord knows what was in the water flowing around my knees! The girls were troopers once again – yet I decided not to publicize the bat epiphany…what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. After 10 minutes of feeling our way through the dark tunnel and lots of laughter and screaming – we made it to the opening on the other side! We all agreed that we were happy to be out of the tunnel – however it was by far the highlight of our trek! This is what I love about travel – you have no idea where it will lead you – you just have to roll with it and laugh a lot along the way!

On our way home I talked to Bahram and peppered him with questions about his family and life on Lombok. He lived in a village not far from our villa with his whole family living around him. He was married at the age of 15 and now had 2 little girls. My favorite fact is that he learned English on the beach…no formal training…I was impressed. He seemed to dabble in everything – snorkeling tours, fishing, surfing, trekking, and livestock! This leads me to the title of this post…cows…well – specifically cowbells.
Photo: Bahram and his cow…and bell!
During this year of travel – I am not able to do much shopping as I really don’t have room to haul beautiful pottery around the world with me…and shipping home each little thing is expensive (plus Miles doesn’t have a large enough apartment to house it all until I get back!). However – since I’m at my sister’s house in Singpaore for a while – I’m able to do some shopping and store it at her place to be shipped home when I leave the Singapore area in April. Finally – I get to take advantage of some of these amazing bargains that I’m bombarded by…saying ‘buy me, buy me’! Ok – back to teh cows…Everyone in Lombok had a cow or two, the cows just roam around the village along with the goats and stray dogs. The cows have these great old cowbells – I was intrigued with the bells and wanted one of my own as apartment décor. I asked Bahram if he had a cow and he said that he had two of them. I then asked if they had a bell…”yes, of course” I asked if I would be able to buy a bell at the market.
He said “Do you have a cow”
…uh…”no – but I have a cat.”
At this point my sister turned around and looked at me like I was crazy – yet we both chuckled about the picture of me having a cow in NYC…grazing in Central Park. I said, “Maybe I could put the bell on the cat. Yet I think it may weigh her down a bit.” I think I lost Bahram. The concept of having a cow bell without a cow is completely foreign to him. The concept of having a cow bell for decoration – well – I’m sure he thinks that I’m crazy. After this humorous interchange he still actually invited us to visit him and his family the next day in his village. Of course I loved this idea and wasn’t going to pass it up a chance to see the every day life in Lombok!

The next morning the girls donated a few of their pens and tablets as gifts for our visit and we headed off to Bahram’s village to see what real life on Lombok was like. When we arrived we were greeted by a number of people. They really rolled out the red carpet for us…well – it was actually a woven mat made of palm leaves – but it felt like we were movie stars! They had us sit down in a little hut and brought us trays of fruit, and fried rice chips and tea.
Photo: Twin boys at the village
It was an outpouring of hospitality that I really didn’t expect. The village was sparse as I had imagined it to be. The homes were made of concrete – but it was basically one room that everyone slept in, ate in, and lived in. They had a well outside of the house where they could get water. There were chickens, pigeons, cows, and goats roaming everywhere. However the main commodity was kids…tons of kids running around – mesmerized by us – this family of white people who have come to visit bearing gel pens, American candy, and paper! This was my chance to get some great photos of the locals and it provided endless entertainment for the kids.
As soon as I would take a picture of them staring intently into the camera, I would show them the image and the whole group of them would erupt in laughter and wonder. We took tons of pictures and then my nieces showed them how to play catch with a beach ball – the kids were full of laughter and smiles – it was quite touching.

The remainder of our time in Lombok was filled with swimming, shopping , beach time, and great food. The girls spent every moment they could in the pool and teaching the various butlers how to do a ‘high five’. We came home from shopping one day and the butler, Ade, met us at the door and gave my sister and I a ‘high five’ to welcome us…I think this meant that it was about time for us to leave this island. Our work here was done – we had successfully corrupted the butlers. However – by the end of the week I decided that I knew the real reason the butlers were assigned to the villa…to catch bugs for sissy little foreigners like us! We were in the middle of tropical jungle…bugs everywhere. Big ones, gross ones, flying ones, hairy ones…thank god for the butlers. Now I just have to figure out how take one of the butlers along with me to Thailand and Vietnam to kill the bugs! Overall – traveling with family was very fun…and a bit more ‘luxury’ than backpacking by myself! However my favorite times were seeing my nieces embrace travel and the unusual world around us. The times in the market, in the village, in the tunnel – the times that were unexpected, and very real. They will grow up into great world travelers!

Photos: My nieces…Megan, Lindsey, Bethany

Family Ties – Singapore

Sherry — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 15:38:17 +0000

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I landed in Singapore ready to see something familiar – my family! I was ready to empty out and fumigate my suitcase, sleep in the same bed for multiple nights in a row and get in the Christmas spirit. However, after a few hours in Singapore getting the tour of my sister’s home, sitting down to a family dinner, helping nieces with their homework – I quickly realized – this is probably the most foreign place I’ve visited so far. The idea of eating a well balanced dinner at 6:30, having a family conversation, getting up in time to get kids off to school, going to church on Sundays, helping with homework (which I have miserably failed at), getting to bed by 10:00, watching Disney movies, and generally being a good role model…well – I don’t live in this ‘family’ world normally. I know that by now (at 36 years old) I am supposed to be completely at ease in this world…but I’m not. This has been a bit of a culture shock – but a fun one. It has brought back so many childhood memories and it made me realize just how different my life in NYC was. In NY I was still working at 6:30, I had my first cocktail by 7:30, dinner at 9:00, bed at midnight, and I never once hung around school age kids unless it was a holiday that I went home for. So – I guess it was about time that I entered this world for a while…

Let me introduce you to my family – my sister, Cyndi, is married to Frank and they have 3 girls – Bethany, Megan, and Lindsey. My nieces officially refer to me as the ‘Crazy Aunt’…I think I’m ok with that…it’s better than being the ‘Boring Aunt’. I love being an Aunt – I always have. I love the fact that I get to do the fun stuff and teach them important things like how to spot a fake Coach bag, how to say hello in Italian, and what thong underwear is. However, I secretly imagine that every night before dosing off to sleep that Frank says to Cyndi “How long is your sister planning on staying here again?” There is one more person to mention in my Singapore family – Mylene. Mylene is from the Phillipines and works for Cyndi’s family tending to various household activites. She’s wonderful…not just because she calls me Miss Sherry (which I secretly love), but she’s a wonderful cook, and has a great laugh to match her easy-going personality. In my new ‘temporary’ home I share a room with my 7 year old niece – I sleep on the bottom bunk. She’s a pretty good roommate…no loud music, she doesn’t wake up when I go to bed late, and no snoring. She does however have numerous stuffed animals that I have to add and remove from the bed everyday – but that’s a small price to pay for free lodging. Considering I have had no flirting with the opposite sex in my last 4 months, a stuffed animal to cuddle with occasionally is not neccesarily a bad thing.

Singapore Sling

Photo: The World Famous Sinapore Sling from Raffles Hotel

Singapore is located approximately 85 miles north of the equator off the southernmost tip of Peninsular Malaysia. Basically – this means that it’s HOT and tropical. On one of my recent runs I kept on having one thought come into my mind- pressure cooker. Running in Singapore is like running in a pressure cooker. I even looked up the definition for those of you that aren’t from the Midwest!
pressure cooker n. An airtight metal pot that uses steam under pressure at high temperature to cook food quickly.

Yup – I felt like a jar of food – being steamed under intense pressure – so much so that I was ready to burst at about mile 2 – where I promptly stopped to walk for a bit. My sister always said that it was very difficult to run in Singapore in the intense heat and hummidity – and I certainly believed her – but you have to experience it for yourself to really appreciate it. My sister also failed to warn me about the other hazards of running in the jungle land…snakes. We were running on a trail one morning I was gasping for air behind her not paying attention, when she suddenly stopped and I pulled up right before running into her. She turned around and said…snake. Sure enough a 5 ft. long snake was slithering across the path. Sure – I tried to remain calm…no problem – I see snakes all the time in Central Park…yeah right. Needless to say – the next time we went running through the jungle together – I took a shorter path on my own for a mile and the only thing I could think about was ‘what if I get bit by a poisenous snake?’. I had planned out a way that I could survive for at least 15 minutes by using my bandana/sweat rag as a turnicate and sucking the venonm out of the bite. Luckily – I didn’t have to put my survival skills to use!

One of my first big things to tend to when I arrived here was to help my sister throw my annual Red Hot Holiday Party. I was so happy that she agreed to carry on the tradition and she did an amazing job. Give an Ott a theme party…and we are in our element! This was a great way for me to meet many of Cyndi and Frank’s friends, the girl’s teachers, and the neighbors! I even taught Mylene how to make Jello shots – I think she’ll be taking that recipe back home with her to the Philippines one day! In fact, everyone like them so much that just this week we made Virgin Jello Shots for dinner one night. I liked teaching my young nieces how to suck jello out of a plastic shot glass…yup…that’s why I’m an Aunt and not a Mom. Any way you jiggle it – the Red Party was a success!
View Red Party pictures

My next big project was going on a field trip to the Rain Forest with Megan’s 4th Grade Class. This was my first dose of masses of hyper kids running around. This was a big wake up call for me! I was in charge of 4 of them as a ‘parent helper’…a title that I never thought I would be adding to my resume…but who knows. We carried out our assignment in the pressure cooker temps and found and photographed various vines, insect evidence, ferns, and fungi.
Then we took a little tour of the park with a guide. During the tour the guide spotted a viper…yes, a viper snake on the railing and showed it to us from a distance. Making a point to tell us that we would most certainly die if it bit us. This little deadly green snake was only about 12 inches long and blended right into the mossy railing…it was quite terrifying to me. However when the 10 year old boy next to me asked if he could touch it – I wanted to scream at him….”Hello…McFly….didn’t you hear the guide say that you would DIE?!” Once again…this is why I am an Aunt, and not a Mom. Plus – 2 snake sitings in the matter of a week was my limit.

Photo: Singapore Birdpark Resident

The next responsibility I had been given was to do a presentation for Lindsey’s 2nd grade class on my trip to Africa. OK – no problem…I’ve done millions of presentations at work…give me the PowerPoint and I’ll get that done ASAP. In true form – I procrastinated on it until the night before. So – I stayed up late and decided to work on it. I picked a background for my slide and started the title page, then on to the list of bullet-pointed topics that I would be covering in my 20 minute presenation……oh……wait a minute….these are 7 year olds, not corporate executives. Crap….I realized that I’ve never had to gear a presentation to such a young audience! I needed to strip this down to bare bones…they won’t stay with me for a title page and bullet points…I needed pictures, I needed safari animals, I needed goofy stories…I needed a drink. One vodka/soda and that got me a bit more in tune with the 7 year old mind. Of course I was still working on the presentation the next morning up to 15 minutes before my sister had to take me to school. I got to the classroom and walked in and had a twenty 2nd graders turn around and stare at me…wow…this was going to be harder than any Steering Committee presentation I had ever done before!
Photo: Me in the school cafeteria with the 2nd graders!

I decided to focus on telling them about the Samburu Tribe I visited while on safari, and talk about all of the animals that I saw. I told them stories about the elephant charging the truck, I told them about the hungry lions, I made them guess the animal names, I showed them the Samburu school children and the mud huts they lived in. I loved it. They raised their hands to ask me questions. One little boy actually raised his hand to tell me that he knew a joke about a giraffe. So I said – ok – let’s hear it…
“Why is a giraffe’s neck so long?”
“Why?”
“Because their feet stink”
It was at this time that I started to amuse myself by thinking that if all corporate presentations were this fun to give that I might have actually stayed working! They all had to ask me one question at the end. But first – the teacher made them all take 10 seconds to sit quietly and come up with a really GOOD question to ask Aunt Sherry. I got questions about what I ate, what I wore, where did I go to the bathroom (that was my favorite one of course!), and how to make an elephant sound (I actually tried my best to do one). At the end the teacher thanked me and they proceeded to all clap and give me ‘fireworks’, ‘Greats’ and ‘fantastiks’. It would take too long to explain what those fireworks, greats, and fantastiks were…but trust me…they were very cute. I even told them that no one at work ever had ever clapped for one of my presentations!
I proceeded to go to recess with the kids and then had lunch in their cafeteria. I felt like a giant among munchkins – but it was fun to see what it was like to be a kid again. Granted – it looked like complete mass chaos to me on the playground…but it beat eating lunch at your desk and checking email any day!

The kids are off school now, I attended all of their Holiday parties and concerts at school, even helped decorate some cookies. So now it was time to start to explore parts of Singapore!
Cyndi and I went to Raffles Hotel – the home of the Singapore Sling – this was a must see/drink on my list of Singapore things to do. I figured this was a good way to break up some of the holiday shopping! The next day we went to the Tiger Beer Brewery with Cyndi and some of her friends. They had a great gift shop and a fabulous company bar where we enjoyed some free beer. I think every corporation needs a company bar! Who’s in favor????

This week we went to the Bird Park. I didn’t have high expectations for a bird park – but it really blew me away. You could get super close to the birds, they did tricks, put on shows, and even let you feed them. I had fun getting out my camera and putting it to use again. Therefore you will see tons of bird pictures in my photography link this time! Bethany bought some bird food at the Lory Park and they birds nearly attacked her! We all had fun watching them land on her and follow her around! My favorite birds were the flamingos….it was as if a lawn somewhere in Florida came to life in Singapore.

My last big adventure was to finally go and get my hair cut and re-colored (Shock/Horror…I’m not a natural blonde!!!). Considering that I was used to having this done every 6 weeks in NY and I had been on the road for 3 1/2 months now – it desparately needed attending to! Somehow though my comment to the hairdresser about “I’d like to keep it blonde” got lost in the translation and I am now a brunette. When I got back to my sisters after becoming a new brunette, my nieces were a little shocked…luckily no one cried. Apparently last time Cyndi came home with a new haircut Lindsey cried…I think I would have lost it if that had happened to me! Once again – this is why I’m an Aunt and not a Mom.

Now we are hunkering down for Christmas Day. Lindsey asks me every day how many days until Christmas – I can feel her excitement building – she is about ready to burst. I used to be one of those kids…the kid who was so Christmas crazy that I couldn’t even function the closer it got. My parents made me sleep with my brother on Christmas Eve…he of course hated this as I would bug him all night with questions. It’s fun to be here, with family, and with kids at this time of year – I couldn’t have planned this any more perfectly in my year of travel. I do look forward to getting back on the travel circuit and seeing Asia with some crazy adventures throughout Thailand. However, there’s no place I’d rather be this Christmas Eve. I’ll be picking out my favorite stuffed animal to sleep in my bunk bed with, tucking in my nieces, and recalling fond memories of my own childhood.

Photo: Woman at the Bird Park…she looks so calm – I loved this shot!

Travel Slogans for Bali

Sherry — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 16:43:33 +0000

Hand Movements

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Bali Sunset

Photo: Sunset over Seminyak
Ahhh – Bali – peace, quiet, simplicity, cultural, relaxation, great food – and the home of the $8 massage….perfect. Bali was going to offer me some new culture again which I was really excited to see. It was also going to offer me some time with my favorite Belgian – no, not a waffle – my girlfriend Veronique! Veronique and I met a few years back through a mutual friend (Angie) while traveling through France (that was a mouthful) and we have remained travel buddies ever since! It’s always great to have a well traveled Belgian who can speak multiple languages to travel with! She’s the only one crazy enough to fly for 20 hrs for a week vacation. Veronique currently lives in Geneva (a stop in my future Europe travels) – so I guess she’s a Swiss Belgian now – but any way you put it – she’s wonderful. We planned all of our Bali activities off the cuff – which made the process even more fun. We agreed to meet in the town of Ubud (the spiritual center of Bali) and figure out the rest from there, we were able to travel around the island from Ubud and then for the remainder of the week we headed to the beach in Seminyak. We had a wonderful time in Bali – and it left us both hungry for more – a good sign that you will visit that country again one day. There are so many things to share about this country and our experiences – every day we would come up with some new ideas around travel slogans for Bali that described our experiences. I’ve used some of them to group together some of our key experiences for the week – enjoy!

Bali – Who wants to be a millionaire?!
When I arrived in Bali I found an ATM in the airport – I did the standard withdrawal choice and my choices were to withdraw $100,000, $500,000 and $1,000,000! I did a double take and looked around for the conversion rates posted somewhere. The conversion rate was 8900 Rupiah to $1 USD. I quickly did the math in my head and decided to withdraw $1,000,000 Rupiah…I was a millionaire!!! I took my wade of 50,000 dollar bills and took a car to our hotel in Ubud – the Oka Wati Hotel s- I felt like Donald Trump…yet my car was a beat up old Toyota with a seat belt that didn’t work and was in desparate need of an alignment. I was staying in the Oka Wati hotel in Ubud – it wasn’t Trump Plaza…but it was this adorable little place with an amazing garden, overlooking a rice paddy and a little pool, and some of the most charming employees that I’ve met so far in my travels.

As I awaited Veronique’s arrival the next day – I walked around Ubud and decided to treat myself to a spa treatment there. I had to see if these spa prices were for real. The brochures described 2 hours of various spa treatments for $15…how could I pass this up? For $15 I received one of the most relaxing, spa experiences of my life – massage, exfoliation, yogurt bath, and a big aromatherapy bath filled with fresh flowers. During the massage when I was supposed to be relaxing I kept on doing the math again in my head wondering if I had divided wrong and if this was really costing me $150 instead of $15 – after all – I’m not an expert at currency conversion yet and Bali was the land of multiple zeros. I paid my $115,000 for my 2 hours of bliss and marveled at the fact that for $115,000 in Australia – I could have only gotten one martini. I loved Bali immediately. Throughout the week we bought car service for $350,000, haggled over water prices for $2000, and enjoyed wine for $10,000 a glass. The only hazard to vacationing in the land of millionaires was that we kept on mixing up our bills. Have you ever quickly tried to tell the difference between $10,000 and $100,000 – it’s not easy! A few thousand dollars of wine and soon the zeros all start blending together! Everything about Bali was a bargain…I continued to have more spa appointments during the week for next to nothing. For a mere $850,000 I had 3 one hour long massages, 1 exfoliation/bath treatment, a facial, mani/pedi, and a head massage. I’m sure you have all thought that you could never get tired of massages…however – I have to say…I was on massage overload after a week of pampering!

Bali – Become one with the Ditties!
Bali was simple…it was about family, faith, and tourism. Our lovely hotel in Ubud was not a typical 100 room hotel, this was a 20 room lodge, with no frills but it was oozing with Bali art and culture. The Oka Wati room came with breakfast served on your little personal veranda each morning which included fruit, yogurt, eggs, and the thickest, best coffee I’ve had so far in my travels. The smell of Gusti bringing it to my veranda in the morning woke me up! Gusti was one of the guys who worked at the hotel and the favorite part of my day was to see him bringing me coffee every morning. He was the happiest person in the morning and would show up on my veranda with a big smile and a pot of thick sludge they called Balinese coffee. He would wish me a good morning and ask what I wanted for breakfast, then a few minutes later he would come back with the best breakfast I had ever tasted, full of spices and garlic and freshness. He made these amazing pancakes that were green from some leaf that Gusti brought from his compound. He showed us how he crushed it and added water to get the flavor and color that was added to the pancakes. He would sit on the veranda and I would pepper him with questions about Bali, the culture, Hinduism, traditions, marriage, family, food, and dance. It was my favorite part of my day – just sitting and talking to him in such a relaxing environment. The Oka Wati had a little marketing brochure that Veronique and I picked up one day. The front read “Welcome to Bali. The magical island paradise blessed with superb natural beauty and a dynamic culture dedicated to the ditties” We both scratched our heads in confusion as to what this word ditties meant. It was like a game to try to make sense of it. Eventually we realized that they were trying to translate the word deities – which somehow turned into ditties…priceless. The rest of our trip we were in constant search of the ditties.
Come visit Bali – Enter at your own Risk!
Ubud has a variety of traditional Balinese dances going on every night at various palaces and temples in the village. The costumes are ornate, the music is delicate and the stories are as complicated and confusing as opera.

I gave up on trying to understand the story of who was who, who wronged who, and who was good and who was evil – and simply watched the dancing. The Balinese dance with their hands, fingers, toes, and eyes…all choreographed together to form this beautiful show. We went to a number of dance performances – The Legong and Barong (classic dance of good and evil) performance was mesmerizing. The hand movements were so intricate and well choreographed. The costumes were ornate and the dedication was unbelievable. These talented performers were performing in order to raise money for their various temples – not for fame or fortune. We also went to the Kecak Fire and Trance Dance. It consisted of about 50 men all chanting this tune with no accompaniment while the story of the dancers played out in front of us. At the end they lit a big pile of coconut husks on fire and let them burn high like a bon fire.

They burned out and a couple of men with big brooms came out and started to sweep at the hot coals…I personally was ready for them to pass out marshmallows. Another man came out decorated in a horse outfit and proceeded to walk/run/skip through the coals. The story goes that the man is put in a trance by the 50 men choir of chanting. He then can walk through burning coals. It was quite a site to see – I thought he would just do it once and be done. But he actually continued to walk through the coals for about 10 minutes. At times he kicked the burning coals into the audience ( I guess he had no sense of direction while in a trance!) and you would hear the screams of the audience members as hot coals landed on them. The little men with the brooms would quickly try to come over and sweep it away and back into the pile. Veronique is a lawyer – and commented that in Bali they must have no fear of lawsuit! Maybe this is why the ticket only cost $5 – it should have read enter at your own risk! The fire walker/kicker actually got tripped up once in his own horse outfit and fell down in the coals…the audience now switched from screams of terror of hot coals flying at them to a concerned hush. However, no firemen had to hose him off – he seemed to be fine and continued on his coal walk of terror…that was some trance!

Bali – it’s like Easter every day!
In the Balinese religion it is customary for women to make daily spiritual offerings in front of every entrance (I believe it somehow wards off evil spirits – I could have used this in front of my office door in NY!). The spiritual offering normally consisted of some type of flowers, incense and holy water. These three items form the trinity and represent the 3 manifestations of their supreme God. I’m not really sure why this was a woman’s job…but suffice it to say – the Balinese women seemed to spend most of their days dropping off offerings.

Photo: Offering of Chocolate Cake
Every morning we would wake up and go out on our veranda and there would be a new little offering made out of palm leaves containing rice, incense, and some flowers in front of our door. It was like the Easter Bunny left a little basket for us – yet there were no jelly beans. The little offerings/blessings were left everywhere on the sidewalks in front of stores and homes. It was impossible to not step on them! Plus – I think they fed the local stray dog population! They would leave anything in the little leaf offering baskets. My favorite offerings were the ones that contained loads of fruit and I saw one that even had a large piece of chocolate cake with sprinkles! The really great thing is that we were in Bali during one of their biggest ceremonies – Galungan. Galungan was on November 29th and on this day the Balinese Hindu people make large offerings and bring them to the temple in the morning. They also decorate their house-gate with a penjor as a symbol of victory against the evil spirits. A Penjor is also a symbol of thankfulness for the grace of God. The men are in charge of making the Penjor which is a tall bamboo tree of sorts (think of it like a Christmas Tree that everyone puts up and decorates in their house in December – the men cut it down and the women decorate it).

The Penjor starts with a long 30 ft. bamboo stick that the men transport on their mopeds…quite a site to see a man on a moped carrying a 30 foot pole speeding down the street and trying to turn corners. Once the men decorate the base of the Penjor, the women are in charge of adding the intricate design details and the alter of offerings. I kept wondering if putting up the Penjor was as stress filled as my family putting up the Christmas tree when I was a kid. Did the Balinese families get into huge family arguments about putting up the Penjor just perfectly – was it straight, did all of the lights work? We were lucky to be there during this special holiday – we simply walked around Ubud and watched the hundreds of mopeds pass by with a families on it. They were dressed in their formal ceremony garments and the women were toting a large baskets filled with various offerings (probably lots of chocolate cake with sprinkles!). Little groups of young boys would walk around the village conducting a Barong Ngelawang. This was a dance and song to ward off the evil spirits and get more customers in the future! This was a wonderful holiday demonstrating how important Balinese religion, and family are – they are the cornerstones of their culture.

Bali – where everyone knows your name!
I met at least 5 Wayans, and 4 Made’s in Bali. This seemed a bit odd to me at first – and then I learned that kids are named for their birth order – they aren’t really given a unique name like we in the US are used to. The birth order and names go in order of oldest to youngest:
Wayan (pronounced Why-an), Made (pronounced Mad-dee), Nyoman (pronounced Neoman), and Ketut.
If a family has more than 4 children – then they start over and the 5 child is called Wayan 2. At first I was a bit disturbed by this as it seemed like it removed any individuality from a name – but after a bit – I got used to it. As a benefit – it was super easy to remember everyones name!

Bali – Relax at our Beaches and Temples and Get That Monkey off Your Back
I lived in NYC for 3 1/2 years and never once felt concerned for my safety or concerned about violence or theft. Ok – there was the first time I ran in Central Park when it got dark out…I was a little concerned then – but that was the first week I was living there and I still had a vision that NY was a dangerous place. There was also the time when someone was smoking crack on the subway next to me…but I never was threatened by him…we just did our thing – he on his crack pipe and me on my crackberry – and commuted in peace. Back on subject…I was in Bali for 1 week and I was mugged by a monkey. No joke – the monkey stole my earring. Let me back up – Veronique and I had decided to get up really early one day and get a driver to take us to Pura Luhur Ulu Watu – a temple on the southern tip of the island. We had heard that it was great to get there before the crowds and get pictures with the morning sun. We woke up at 5:30 and took off with our driver – Wayan – at 6AM. Sure enough – we got there before any crowds…in fact – it was deserted. Before we got out of the car, Wayan told us to make sure to be careful of the monkeys as they would take sunglasses and bags – basically anything that wasn’t secure. It seemed rather weird – but I took off my sunglasses and put my camera across my body and took off ready to get some great photos.

Photo: Look closely for the monkees on the fence!
When we walked closer to the temple we notice there were tons of monkeys hanging out on the path – it was more than you see in a zoo…there were about 25 of them hanging out. Little did I know that they were casing us. Veronique and I were a little freaked out by the monkeys – they were large and we weren’t too thrilled that they outnumbered us. We tried to mind our own business and take pictures wandering around the temple. However there was a path that we wanted to go on to get some pictures from a distance. We looked at the path and it was guarded by the monkeys…so we had to stop and re-group a bit. Veronique took off her glasses and put them in her pocket and we took off through the monkey gang. We were a bit freaked out about it – but I sent her first as she couldn’t see anyway without her glasses! We had just about got through the gaggle of monkeys and I relaxed a bit and turned around to look at them and all of a sudden I felt something on my back. At first I though it was Veronique tapping me on the shoulder – but then I quickly realized that a large monkey the size of a medium sized dog had just jumped on my back!! It jumped off as fast as it had jumped on – but it completely freaked me out! I yelled at Veronique and told her that I had just been jumped by a monkey. She of course didn’t see a thing – but couldn’t believe it. We quickly moved out of the monkey gang and I did a little inventory of what I had with me…camera – check, camera case – check, swing pack – check. Yet I still felt like something was missing – sure enough – I did an inventory of my jewelry and discovered that one of my silver earrings was gone…ripped right from my ear. I guess it looked like a shiny, tinfoil wrapped chocolate or something. I took off the remaining earring and left it on a rock – I admitted defeat. After all – the monkeys should be accessorized well.

Bali – Where Safety is First!
Veronique and I stayed at a lovely beach resort for next to nothing in Seminyak for the remainder of our week. After haggling with the staff to get the ‘best price’ – we decided to stay in the hotel cottages as no one could really tell us the difference between the hotel rooms and the hotel cottages except that the cottages were cheaper and across the street from the main hotel. Little did we know that the cottages came with our own personal crossing guard. Since we had to cross the road to get there (this was a very small, very docile road), they had a little security guard there at the cross walk 24/7. We would come out of our cottage room and the little guard would perk up and come out of his hut, blow his whistle, and use his electronic crossing wand (that flashed green or red) and would help us across the crosswalk. Seriously…there was little to no traffic – but damn did we feel safe! Even though the Balinese were extremely safe when it came to crossing the street, they were the other extreme when it came to personal transportation. I bet you never would have guessed that a family of 4 could all fit on a moped/motorcycle…well – they can.

It normally went something like this, Dad drove with a child in front of him hanging on to the handles, the Mom was on the back holding on to the Dad around the waist and the youngest child was sandwiched between the Mom and Dad like a sardine. Normally at least 3 of them would have helmets…the smallest child was too small for a helmet. I was taken back to the times when my family (of five) would go on family trips in our little Honda Civic hatchback car. We would pack in garbage bags because they were more ‘mold-able’ and could we could fit more in the hatchback that way. It was always fun carrying our paper bag/suitcase into hotels…very classy. However – as much as my sister, brother, and I hated sharing a very small space in the back seat…it now seemed like paradise compared to the average Balinese family of four all crammed onto a little motorcycle! I honestly have never seen so many motorcycles in my life…not even in Rome. Everyone had a motorcycle and the day after Galungan everyone on the island was on them traveling somewhere…the traffic was crazy! Luckily Made, our driver, was well versed in dodging motorcycles!

Bali – The Land of 20 Questions
I was a bit disarmed when I got to Ubud and everyone I met would immediately ask “Where are you staying?” followed by “Where are you from?” followed by “How long are you in Bali?” followed by “What is your name?” followed by “Where did you go for dinner?”…this personal interrogation would go on endlessly if you would let it.

At first this line of questioning was way too intrusive for me. A stranger coming up and asking me where I’m staying normally sets off my ‘warning signal’. I put on my New Yorker face and gave them the best brush off I could. It felt as if they were robots taking a survey and reporting their findings back to a Balinese Supreme Being…maybe a ditty…who liked chocolate cake, and rode a motorcycle. However I came to learn that this was their way of practicing English. In addition – this line of questioning seemed completely normal to them – this is how they learned about others, and as a side benefit they determined what the popular hotels were too! By day 3 I was freely giving up all of this information to anyone that would ask. I would then start to follow it up with a few questions of my own such as – “Have you ever been to America?” followed by “If you could go anywhere in the world – where would you go?” followed by “What’s your favorite music” followed by “What’s your favorite thing to eat for breakfast” followed by “Who’s your favorite actor?”. This actually spawned into a new idea for my website…interview the locals…which is exactly what I started doing so check out my new Interview posts on the site!

Bali – Come and Live an Ulcer-free Lifestyle!
Veronique and I had a wonderful time exploring this enchanting island. I think we ended the week lighter than we started the week. Between the excessive sweating and the hours of spa exfoliation treatments that we underwent – we must have lost weight! We both basked in the peacefulness of Bali. The people were so patient and kind. Nothing really wound them up. It was true tranquility. In fact – upon interviewing one woman for my new web posts – I asked her if her job was ever stressful. She looked at me with a confused look on her face and said “stressful?”. She didn’t even know what the word meant. I quickly moved on to the next question as I wasn’t going to be the one to burst her bubble and describe what stressful meant! On the last night there, we laid in our big king size bed in our cottage and laughed about how we had spent millions of dollars on our spa treatments and this was the smoothest our skin had ever been…unfortunately I was laying next to my Belgian girlfriend – poor planning on our parts! The men of Bali didn’t know what they were missing! However – they were probably just as happy sitting around their home with their families eating chocolate cake.

Photo: Veronique and I living our luxurious ulcer-free lifestyle…I don’t even remember what stress is…

New Zealand Finale – Land of the Sheep

Sherry — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 06:22:14 +0000

Land of Sheep

For all snapshots of the South Island Finale – click here!

To view all of my New Zealand Photographs – click here!

My last days in New Zealand and I feel as if I was looking through a kaliedascope for 3 days. The colors were so powerful on the South Island – plus – the sun was out so we had bright blue skies…yeah!! I left a very cold Queenstown (it actually snowed there all day and was 1 degree C when I left) and hopped back on the Magic Bus to finish off my tour of the South Island. It was weird to re-integrate myself back on the Magic Bus as all of my friends had moved on the past week – so I was back in the business of making new friends again! With a new bus, came a new driver, Mark. Mark really left something behind…like a personality…but he had his weird quirks and generally got us to where we were going safely! He loved to use the term ‘wee little town’ and the word ‘keen’. It was cute for the first day – but after the 3rd day I was about ready to jump out of the moving bus if I heard the expressions again!

Photo – the clouds…it looks like a canvas!

We headed to Dunedin – a cute little college town and home of Speights Beer. I decided to skip all of the touristy stuff that afternoon and instead treat myself to a movie in a theater as opposed to a plane movie! I decided to go to Flags of our Fathers as I knew it was rather recent and everything else showing was a few months old – I felt like I needed to be on the cutting edge. The movie theater was great, HUGE, Lazy-Boy like recliner seats…and I was the only one in the theater!! I sat smack dab in the middle and enjoyed the fact that it wasn’t packed with people like in NY. However – as I started to think about NY – I realized that being in this theater was just like being at the Lowes on Broadway…all of a sudden I thought…what if my past 2 months were just a dream and when I walked outside I would exit on a bustling Broadway street. My mind was playing tricks on me – it was a very eery thought. Anyway – after the excessive violence in the movie – I was jolted back to reality and exited out into Dunedin…thank goodness! I stopped in at a local photography exhibit and it inspired me…so make sure you check out this blogs picture link…it will be worth it! The town had an overall artsy feel…must have been the college influence there.

The next day we were off again to Lake Tekapo – but first we stopped in Dunedin at the world’s steepest street…yep…that’s right – it’s not in San Francisco – it’s in Dunedin New Zealand! I have to admit – I was skeptical – but honestly – it was really steep! Pictures really don’t do it justice – but I tried! Then we stopped at the beach to see the Moeraki Boulders – they were these amazing limestone boulders that were shaped by the sea…much like the Pancake rocks of the West Coast. However – these were perfectly round!

Next we headed into sheep country again – the vistas were beautiful as ever. There were these fluffy clouds that looked as if an artist just painted them on a canvas. We then rode into a flat area where we had an amazing view of snow covered Mt. Cook – the tallest mountain in New Zealand. We stopped at a lake to take some pictures and I experienced the most beautiful blue lake I’ve ever seen.

The color was so unique! The color of the water was such a perfect blue because it was glacier water. Once again – I felt as if someone had painted this view on a canvas…it doesn’t even look real in the pictures! We were so lucky to see it on such a clear day! We arrived in Lake Taekapo late afternoon and I hopped on a horse and rode around the lake for a a short time. Having never really spent much time on a horse – it was more like I gingerly got on an old horse named Jimmy and we slowly followed the other horses in front of us around a trail for an hour. It doesn’t sound quite as glamorous that way though!

During this leg I met some new friends on the bus from Canada. A mother and daughter traveling together for a couple of months – Terri Ann and Lois – they were so cute and full of energy it was wonderful to see! The mother, Lois, even went sky diving…my idol! We spent time talking about all of the funny Magic drivers and playing cards – they really were fun to see and it made me miss my mom! We were off for Christchurch the next morning. Christchurch was a great town full of art and architecture! I was only going to be there for 3 hrs before I had to catch a plane – but I had a great time taking pictures on the sunny day. I wish I would have had more time there – but I had to hop a plane that evening back to Auckland.

So – I’m back in Auckland now reflecting on my Magic Tour of New Zealand. My time was too short here – I needed about 2 more weeks. Even though it’s a small country – it has some much to offer. I toured both islands in a matter of 3 weeks and there were so many places I wanted to stay longer! Overall – I can’t seem to find the right words for the hills, mountains, and the color that surrounded me. Some of the words that come to mind are Mighty, Presence, Pure, Vast, and Vibrant. The hills were so green – like a golfcourse fairway – but for acres and acres. The green against the blue sky, and the white clouds and sheep seems too perfect at times. Everywhere I went on the bus I thought that it couldn’t get more beautiful than where I am presently – but I was constantly overwhelmed by a new breathtaking landscape. It actually at times didn’t even feel real. In this world of digital artistry and retouching I felt as if someone created these views for me. I half expected to see the Dreamworks logo on the bottom corner of the mountain view!

Let’s talk about sheep.

The sheep outnumber the people in this country…which I find rather unique. there are 60 million sheep and 4 million people. The sheep could actually unite and form a coo and take over the whole country if they wanted to. I actually would entertain myself on the bus thinking about that scenario! When I was in grade school – each year a sheep farmer would come and the whole school would gather in the gymnasium to watch a real sheep shearing. I was reminded of those days…I thought it was so cool. I never thought that I would end up in New Zealand – the sheep mecca of the world! I was reminded of one of my favorite movies…Babe…yes, Babe. I would see the sheep dogs running around in the fields and marvel at the beauty of it all! Sorry – no pigs to be seen though.

This New Zealand adventure was also about testing myself. I wanted to see if I could do the backpacking thing. I felt like I missed out on the ‘backpacking life’ in my 20’s – so I wanted to try to experience it in my 30’s. I will admit – at first it was a bit challenging. I was really not comfortable with sleeping with strangers (no laughing), sharing showers, and trying to live on the cheap – it was so different than my regular life that I have come to love! There were no 400 thread count sheets here! However – I adapted – I grew to embrace my budget lifestyle again. I got used to sleeping on the top bunk and not falling out. I even enjoyed eating PB&J every day until I got through a whole loaf of bread! I proved to myself that when I needed to – I could be thrifty again. However – I never did get used to coming home from the bar to a dorm room full of people sleeping, trying to be quiet – and use my flashlight to find my way around in a drunken stumble! I missed my past life of simply getting a cab home, having my cat greet me at my apartment door, turning on the TV, grabbing a bowl of cereal, and sitting on the couch in my pj’s trying to sober up before I went to bed! Having to be considerate of others in a drunken state was not my forte!

This trip wasn’t about immersing myself in the local culture – in fact – I met very few local except for the guides. However I did learn some of the local sayings – my favorite was ‘Sweet As’ – used to express something that was ‘cool’ or ‘awesome’. For the first few days here I thought they were saying ‘Sweet Ass’…but alas…they weren’t complimenting my bum…they were just saying ‘cool’.

The trip through New Zealand was more about learning about myself – some inner exploration. I had lots of time on the bus to think…think about life, think about the past, think about the future, family, and friends.

Photo:Art Gallery in Christchurch…the shadows were great!

I feel like my creative side has been allowed to come out. The good news is that I feel like I have a creative side again! I feel like I’m looking at the world through new eyes…the color is so intense – and the thoughts are so intense. I constantly carry a little note pad around with me and write down thoughts just so I don’t forget them. I don’t really know what I’m going to do with all of this new vision…but I hope to God I do something with it. I know I will do something with it!

So – I came to New Zealand without ever seeing Lord of the Rings…however, I felt like I really SAW New Zealand – my way. Sweet-As!!

Do you believe in Magic? North Island New Zealand

Sherry — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 10:38:58 +0000

Photo: Tangariro National Park
View snapshos of Auckland to Wellington

View my New Zealand Travel Photography
When I arrived in New Zealand – I had no plan…very unlike me – but I was hoping for some magic I guess. The good news is that I found it – The Magic Bus! No – I wasn’t eating shrooms nor is this some cousin to Scooby Doo and the Mystery Van.

The Magic Bus is a hop on/hop off bus company in New Zealand that I had heard about. I did some research online and then went to their offices in Auckland. There I was able to arrange my whole trip through New Zealand hitting the highlights that I wanted to hit, traveling around with other backpackers, and having some flexibility at the same time. I bought the north/south pass and was off!
Photo: Magic Bus looking out over Auckland – my home on wheels!

Our driver’s name was Rangy – a big Maori-Kiwi guy that certainly knew how to maneuver a bus with ease. We all introduced ourselves and said where we were from when we left Auckland. This is a process that I’ve now grown quite used to – this name, rank, and serial number process. I determined that I need to come up with something more interesting instead of “I’m Sherry from America – New York City”. Maybe something like “I’m Sherry and I’m from a blue state in the US, I like ice cream, the color pink, sunsets, rainy days, and fizzy drinks” – or maybe I could just use my old match.com profile or something. Anyway – after about 10 minutes the bus driver called out for me “where’s that girl from NY, come up front”. I thought I may be in trouble for being to old to be on this bus or something – but instead he simply wanted to talk to me about what it was like living NYC and ask general questions about 9/11. This also tends to be a common question I get a lot – everyone wants to know about 9/11 and being a New Yorker. We chatted for a while – he had one eye on the road and one on me…made me a little nervous – but he was completely in control…I guess.

Day 1 – Auckland to Rotorua – it’s only a fuzzy little bunny…

We left Auckland and headed for Waitomo to do one of the first things on my list – see the glow worms. This area is know for it’s caves and glow worms – so I wanted to go check these little club like creatures out…I thought there may be some great techno playing in the caves – but found out that the glowing worms had nothing to do with raves…damn. I along with others on the bus (my new friends from Ireland, England, and Sweden) went on a Black Water Rafting tour. It was already chilly out – so the thought of getting into a cave, tubing in cold water sounded a bit icey…but you only live once – and they do give you sexy looking wet suits to wear. As I slithered into the wetsuit, I tried to not think about the thousands of other peope who had worn the wetsuits, booties, and wellies – but it was hard not to when they kind of smelled. Oh well – they were warm – so I slid into the suit (more like struggled my way into the skin tight rubber), put on the wellies, and dawned my helmet – I was ready to see the worms! We drove out to a field of cows, walked through the field with the cows in our goofy suits, picked up our intertube that would safely fit our ass and then entered the cave – it was rather creepy. Once your eyes adjusted the guides told you about the glow worms – I honestly zoned out during this scientific stuff and zoned back in just in time to learn that the glowing is actually the worm’s feces that glows…now that was interesting. We followed the guides deeper into the cave, turned off our helmet lights and all of a sudden there were millions of glowing worms on the cave walls and ceiling.
No music or sweaty men dancing – just glowing worms….you can’t have it all I guess. We proceeded through the narrow cave tunnels in our tubes through the cold water! We even went backwards down a water fall (albiet a small one that did enough damage to get water up my nose). As we chained together and let the guides lead us in the dark – it was rather creepy not being able to see where you were going – but after about 40 minutes…we saw the light…yeah! Back up we went to the cows…they had no reaction when we popped back up from the ground. We finished it off with a warm shower and some hot soup…yummy! We also stopped at a rabbit shearing farm. Yup – that’s right – you read it right – rabbit shearing. They raise Angora Rabbits (apparently very rare) and they look like a giant cotten ball.
They shear the rabbits every 3 months else they will die from overheating! They tie up the rabbit and shear it – they gave us a demonstration…it was rather disturbing seeing the rabbit spread out and tied up – but apparently PETA was fine with this and the animal was not harmed in any way! We hopped back on the bus and proceeded to Rotorua for our first night’s stop! That night my new friends and I went to a Maori village and dinner. It was a chance to learn about the large Kiwi population (14%) who are from the Maori tribe. If any of you are rugby fans out there – the New Zealand Rugby Team, the All Blacks, do an old Maori tribal dance before their opponents every game. It includes bulging your eyes and sticking out your tongue. Something my brother and I used to do ages ago – maybe we had a little Maori in us!

Day 2 – Rotorua to Taupo – Some Like it Hot…
For all photos of Thermal Park click here!
The North Island is a melting pot…not of people – but literally a melting pot! It was formed from many volcanic eruptions and those volcanos are still alive and kicking…geysers, hot pools, and boiling mud…a spa delight! We stopped at the geothermal park and walked around it’s colorful hot pools for a while. It was quite beautiful …you can judge yourself on the pictures!

Photo: Hot Mud Pool

We then went on to a few adventure activity stops where I decided to watch instead of participate as I had other similiar things planned for the South Island. It was fun to watch other people scream like little girls though! We stayed in Taupo that night. A bunch of people had went skydiving in the afternoon – but since I had already conquered that on my list of ‘things to do before I die’ – I passed and went to look around the town. The town was beautiful – it is situated by a lake that is as big as Singapore (basically very big). I did some grocery shopping so that I could have really cheap and eat PB&J sandwiches on the bus and spend more money on activities instead! That night a bunch of us from the bus went out for Irish food and had a great time telling traveling stories.

Day 3 – Taupo to Wellington – Land of Sheep
Today we took off early for Wellington as we had a longer drive today. We went through some stunning snow capped mountains – apparently they were in Lord of the Rings (or LOTR as the locals call it). Kiwi’s are LOTR’s crazy…it apparently put New Zealand on the map. I of course wouldn’t know as I only saw the first movie and really didn’t follow it very well (I try not to tell many people here this as they give me this amazed/disgusted look). Regardless – the countryside here is beautiful. There were green hills and valleys – dotted with little white sheep and cows! It was so quaint – I made Rangy stop so I could take pictures!
Photo: Sheep on the landscape…this shot was taken out of the speeding bus!

The colors were amazing! We arrived in Wellington (the little known capital of New Zealand) early in the afternoon – it was a really cute, hip little town. I checked into my hostel and went for a run along the waterfront – I felt sane again! It was cold though…in fact -the weather in New Zealand has been quite grey since I’ve arrived here – but I’m trying to forget that and enjoy it anyway!

The Magic Bus keeps you on the move every day which is good and bad. I like seeing the various areas of the country but I don’t get to stay anywhere long enough to get a feel for it. However – I have some active plans for the South Island – so I will be able to stay longer there and get to really know the area (and unpack my bag for more than one night!) This is a journey through New Zealand – but it equally seems to be an inner journey for me.

Getting used to backpacker type travel and a different kind of quality of life for me has had it’s ups and downs. I don’t really know where I fit in anymore. I know where I came from – a life in NYC where I very rarely cared about what I was spending! If I already had 4 pairs of black shoes – there’s still no reason to not get a 5th – you can never have too many! Broadway shows, dinner out every night – anything goes. Now my peers are quite a bit younger than me, I’m staying in dorms bunk beds for $15 a night, eating PB&J sandwiches, being very budget conscience mainly because my traveling peers are (oh yeah – and I don’t have a job). I carry around a loaf of bread on the bus and generally wear the same things most days (whatever is on top of my pack). This is a far cry from my past life!

As I walked around Wellington I felt like I should be out at all of the tourist attractions as I’m only there one night – but intstead I put on my most classy clothes (jeans and black shirt) and went walking around the heart of the city. I watched the locals leave work and commute home, I window shopped, and I found a wine bar to sit at and feel civilized again after sitting in a bus all day. The wine bar was devine – cozy, quaint, filled with locals grabbing a glass after work. I have just spent more on a glass of wine and bruschetta than my lodging – suffice it to say – there are no backpackers here! In fact, when I first walked in I only saw small tables of men – everyone turned and looked at me. My initial instinct was that I just walked into a gay wine bar – but maybe they were staring at my jeans and wind jacket choice of attire. I looked a little closer and did see some women in the bar – so I felt I could stay and have a glass!

The bar was hip, clean, well-designed…crisp. I felt like this is…errr…I mean was…my kind of place! I’m happy that I skipped the touristy cable car up the hill and viewing the museum in exchange for seeing the locals and enjoying a nice glass of wine in a proper wine glass. Yet I doubt my fellow backpackers would agree – especially if they saw my bill! I guess a part of me would rather be a ’social tourist’ – after living in two huge tourist cities (San Francisco and New York City) I know that it’s not Times Square that makes NY or Fisherman’s Wharf that makes San Francisco – it’s the people, it’s the everyday life, it’s how the locals interact, seeing what they wear and hearing what they talk about.

Wellington really is a lovely town – I enjoyed running/walking around the area. I’m still reconciling where I fit in as I walk back to my hostel and my new group of nomad-like friends. Regardless – I will get on the bus tomorrow again toting my bag of bread and peanut butter, wearing my same fleece and tennis shoes – but I will fit in!

The South Island awaits!!!

Cape Town South Africa

Sherry — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 20:34:42 +0000

View from Table Mountain

View snapshots of Cape Town, South Africa

View South Africa Photography

It’s been a month already – I can hardly believe how fast it’s gone. Yet I haven’t been working for more than a month now. There have been so many emotions coursing through me – some good – some disturbing. I’m trying to teach myself this new way of life – this carefree way – but it certainly has hurdles. The hurdles of years and years of working away at the American dream…money, title, security. I have none of those things now – I gave them up – and it’s quite a lot to deal with some days. These hurdles lead to me freaking out every so often – I no longer have a job – very strange. Granted – no one I’ve met is shocked that I’m jobless – it’s just the social pressure that I’m putting on myself. It feels weird to just be spending money and not have any coming in. I feel lazy and guilty some days – like I’m not using my brain. Yet – if I really think about it – I am using my brain every day – in fact it’s in overload taking in new things, new thoughts, new experiences. But it’s no longer running meetings, or making business decisions. Heck – my hardest decision I make each day is to decide what to eat and where to go (then again – back at my old job one of my big decisions of the day was what to eat – so maybe it’s no so different!). I can no longer plan every moment of my days/weeks/months. This is what I excelled at in NYC – I always had something planned – every moment. Not anymore – my brain is struggling with this new phenomena – but it’s slowly getting used to it.

For the 1st time in 14 years – I am getting 8 hours of sleep a night, not using an alarm clock, and waking up laying in bed completely wondering what I will do that day. I have no plans. This is a bit unnerving for me. I feel like I’m watching a sitcom of someone else’s life – this can’t be my life. I haven’t watched TV for at least 3 weeks, and I haven’t read any American news for a month. I find myself craving a NY Times. (Miles – stop laughing) In the 3 1/2 years I lived in NYC – I NEVER read the Times – Miles would tell me the headlines and that’s how I stayed informed. However – now whenever I go into a book store – I find myself scouring the shelves for one…anything…even a USA Today…yes – I’m desperate!

I haven’t run for a month now too…my body really has no idea what is going on…it’s starving for adrenaline! However – my running friend Vida from NYC informed me that the Coach team did really well in the Corporate Challenge Championship race. I had qualified for this race before I left but had to decline since I wouldn’t be there. However – she told me that it had my time, Sherry Ott, listed at running it in 25:06. So even though I’m halfway around the world – I guess my alter ego is still in NYC running faster than ever!!! So – whomever ran for me…thanks I guess!!

There are some skills that I’ve put to use in a big way since I’ve been traveling – sleeping through lots of loud noise is one. NYC trained me well for the hostels that I’m living in. Walls are thin and people are loud – but I sleep right through it! I’ve put my art of socializing in overdrive. I have met so many new people in simply a week – it’s a bit overwhelming.

Please take note – as you continue to read my blog – I will simply refer to these people that I meet as my ‘new friends’ from (pick a country). You won’t be able to keep up with the names and places – as I can hardly do that and I’m living it!

Some of the recent new friends have been a couple from Holland, newlyweds from Brighton, Mark and Pat from North Wales, Sara from Toronto, and a Bobbie from Philly. The list goes on and one and I’ve only been at one hostel. I must admit – I was a bit concerned about how I would do in the hostels as I’ve never stayed in one before (once again I’m experiencing things in my 30’s that I should have experienced in my 20’s – oh well – it makes me feel young!) .

So far the hostel experience has been amazing – it’s like a socializing factory of sorts. I’ve decided that shy people don’t travel – as everyone I’ve met is extremely outgoing – kind of like cheerleaders on crack – but in a good way! I’ve yet to brave ‘dorm living’ in a hostel yet – but it is in my near future. I’ve been living on my own with my cat now for 10 years – the thought of sleeping in a bunk bed and sharing bathrooms terrify me a bit. However – one of the quickest ways to becoming ‘old’ is to become set in your ways – so – in the name of youth – I will give dorm living a go! It’s all part of the adventure!

OK – now on to Capetown…sorry for that diversion – but admit it – you were getting bored with simply travel blog stuff.

Arriving in South Africa was stunning – I felt like I had been ship wrecked for a month and all of a sudden I was dropped back into modern society. The 3rd world to 1st world switch was abrupt and I felt a sense of relief to see normal roads, ATM’s, fast food places and malls – but at the same time I felt sad to be leaving the ’simple’ life. Every day in Eastern Africa put my brain synapses in overdrive – I was redlining with thoughts on what I was seeing every day. On the other hand – the thought of a country with uninterrupted electricity was sounding pretty good to me!

I stayed at Cape Town Backpackers in the heart of Cape Town in the Tamboerskloof neighborhood. Since Cape Town has a LARGE Dutch influence – all of the names have this strange Dutch sound (Stellenbosch, Franschhoek, etc) as if the chef from the Muppets named all of the places. You remember him – he talked but made no sense. Every time I hear one of these Dutch names I say it in my head with the chef’s accent in mind.

Photo: Cape Point Coast Line

When Cyndi left me I decided that I needed to first spend some time site-seeing at the local Internet Cafe. I spent the whole afternoon there catching up on things. When I got back to the hostel I asked the staff there if I could reserve a Robben Island ticket as I had heard they had to be booked in advance. Luckily Lea (the manager) was able to get me a space in a couple of days – at that time a young guy who overhead my conversation wanted /friend, Pat, and my first ‘new friends’ were found – Mark and Pat from North Wales. It’s weird how things work out…I had been terrified all day that I would be lonely and here came along the perfect new friends! They were funny, outgoing, and liked to drink – a match made in Hostel Heaven! They asked me to join them for dinner and for the next 3 days we were joined at the hip!

We went on a tour of Cape Point together dinner and drinks every night, Robben Island, and I taught them how to play Yahtzee. In exchange I learned great new phrases such as “I was so pissed last night!” – meaning – “I was so drunk last night”. I learned that being “tapped” or “pulled” meant that you were hit on at a bar (or wherever). I learned the difference between snogging and shagging. I learned that Wales is NOT the same country as England (yet that is all still a bit fuzzy for me) and finally I learned a bit about soccer leagues in Europe as well as the fact that a proper cricket match can last for days. The education was all jolly good fun! Pat and Mark were co-workers and had a humorous friendship – kind of like brother and sister – so I fit in just fine.

Mark was the first person I ever met that made a part time living repairing Bouncy Castles. Apparently bouncy castles are popular in Wales and they often ‘pop’ – Mark to the rescue!! However his funniest trait was that he had self diagnosed himself with a ’shy bladder’. Not a small bladder – a shy bladder. He couldn’t pee around other people in a public bathroom. I thought he was trying to pull the gullible American along – but Pat confirmed it and he proceeded to show me the illness definition on Google (you can look it up yourself)…how absurd! As you can tell – we got along great! Bouncy Castle repair man with a shy bladder – I still chuckle thinking about it!

When we went to Cape Point we were able to see the African penguins along Boulder Beach. The penguins get the nickname Jackass penguins because they make noises like a donkey. How a cute little penguin can make such a horrible noise just seems wrong. After viewing the penguins we drive to Cape Point to go biking. However on the way our guide spotted some whales off the coast about 300 ft. away. We stopped and realized there were actually 3 whales swimming together – they were so close to us that you could hear them – the noise was much nicer than the penguins!

We proceeded to the entrance to the point and hopped on our bikes for a leisurely coast downhill – not quite the type of workout I was expecting. However the coastline once again reminded me of Northern California – Big Sur area. After lunch we hiked up to the lighthouse and then down to the Cape of Good Hope – the area where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet. I expected to see some wall of water like when Moses parted the Red Sea – but it was rather uneventful! The only way to really tell that the oceans meet is by the temperature of the water. The Atlantic is still cold and the Indian Ocean is warm. That night the hostel had a big BBQ (called a brai in South Africa) – it was quite the party – even some bar top dancing – surprisingly I refrained from dancing on the bar – and left that to the bouncy castle repairman.

We visited Robben island the next day in the blustery weather with a slight hangover. We got on the ferry and I had the deja vu of going to Alcatraz island – cold ferry out to a island prison – who could blame me. They had ex-prisoners give you a tour of the old facilities – which was even more creepy. You just had to wonder what in the world would make them want to come back to this hated place and be a guide. Besides a being a prison for political prisoners during apartheid – the island served as a leper colony from 1845 to 1931, and a military base from 1939 to 1959 and then a prison was formed from 1960 to 1991. Mandella was imprisoned there from 1963 to 1982 and then taken to yet another prison before being released.

The island was dismal, the leper colony cemetery was eerie and the prison was depressing – this was my kind of tour! The cells didn’t have beds – just mats rolled out on the floor, a shared bathroom and a small yard area. The cold oozed through the floors and the mats. The whole thing just left you wondering – “How the hell could’ve this happened?” Apartheid actually means ‘living apart’. The black and colored people had no rights, were kicked out of their neighborhoods and no future. This was not more than 13 years ago – it seems impossible that this was so recent – in my lifetime.

Yet the South Africa today still has many issues. The government is new and still corrupt in less visible ways. The crime is high and i saw no police presence anywhere. Everyone forbids me from walking outside alone once the sun goes down and it drives me crazy! I feel like Princess Fiona from Shrek and have to race the sun home before I turn into mugging bait! I heeded their advice and would take taxis a matter of 6 blocks – this made my New Yorker blood boil!. I talked to once South African that said that “during apartheid they locked the blacks out, and now the whites simply lock themselves in”. Very true statement – as all affluent people live in gated, high security neighborhoods. There’s something about beautiful houses/estates surrounded by barbed wire that just seems wrong. Yet this is the norm all over Africa. Everyone hires security guards – I swear that ADT must be the biggest employer here! At times this all made me feel as if Capetown was simply masquerading as a 1st world country. 1st world by day, but reverting back at night. Maybe Giuliani should consider taking over!

Photo: At the lighthouse at Cape of Good Hope

Lamu – a Hidden Paradise

Sherry — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 19:35:12 +0000

Lamu, Kenya

Pronounced – ‘la-moo’

View Kenya Photography

View All Lamu Snapshots

We arrived in Lamu yesterday via a small 20 passenger plane and a very good looking your pilot! When we arrived at the small airfield it was lightly sprinkling, but by the time they took our luggage out on a little 2 wheel wooden cart and wheeled it off the runway, it was pouring rain. We ran to the dock and onto the little dhow (wooden boat) and got under the make-shift cover/tarp for cover – but we were drenched! The island of Lamu is traversed by boat or by foot or donkey. The ‘airport’ is only reachable by boat!

The hungry mosquitoes were in heaven – it was 6:30PM , humid, and wet – it was feeding time for them (thank god for Malaria Meds!). We arrived at Kijani House (hotel) via the dhow. It was a beautiful bed and breakfast of sorts. The rooms were all designed in a traditional Lamu style. The furniture was ornate, the windows were open and had no screens and the décor was a mix of Indian, African and Turkish. Each room had a traditional Lamu door and lock…padlock that is. It was quaint – I loved it. We were in the village of Shela on the island of Lamu. The next day we hired a guide, Hammed, to take us to Lamu village via a dhow (about 4 km away). Lamu was a big step back in time. There are no cars there and not many bikes either. The roads (dirt paths) are much too narrow for cars – so they use donkeys instead.

Narrow streets of Lamu

They also use wooden hand carts – kind of like a large wheel barrow of sorts. The town is bustling with people everywhere. It is a mix of people and religion – African, Indian, Christian and Muslim. Hammed taught us about Lamu’s struggle for independence in the 1750’s and it relatively short, modern life. We learned about how the traditional Lamu houses were built so that women could go visit their female neighbors on the rooftops as they weren’t allowed to be seen by men except for their husband. Therefore a maze of ‘streets’ on the rooftops developed. Hammed educated us on arranged marriages, the accepted practice of polygamy, and the 7 days of wedding celebration that would occur. The wedding couple finally met each other for the first time on the night of the 3rd day and then the partying continued for the next 4 days.

Transportation in Lamu

The streets of Lamu were bustling. It reminded me of NYC in a way because if you weren’t aware – you’d most certainly get run over by a donkey – the little narrow streets were crowded and they didn’t have room or tolerance for a tourist stopping in the middle to take a picture. You had to match the rhythm and flow or risk being road kill! We spent the rest of the late afternoon on the isolated beach in Shela – there was nothing touristy about it – just beautiful soft sand – all to ourselves and camels (not the cigarette – then animal)!

The last day in Lamu we went sailing on a dhow and had a fish fry for lunch. The fish – white snapper – was caught that day and fried up on a make-shift grille. Six whole fish were put in a plastic bowl and we each picked each up and ate it with our hands picking the bones clean as they were so delicious and peppery. I felt like we were cast-aways eating fish with our hands.

My Kenyan traveling 'team'!

Our guide, Hammed took care of us well – and as a gift – I provided him a new piece of American slang to add to his vocabulary “My bad”. He was a big fan of American slang so he appreciated this greatly – it was the least I could do for the wonderful time that he showed us all in Lamu!

Safari – Are we going to move?????

Sherry — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 12:47:07 +0000

View Photography of Safari and Samburu Tribe

View all snapshots of the safari
View snapshots of the Samburu Tribe

We’ve seen some amazing animals here – you can get so close with no boundaries. When I was young we used to go on field trips to Wild Life Prairie Park outside of Peoria – there you see animals in their ‘natural habitat’. It offered the animals large areas to roam – larger than your average zoo basically. It was a kind of Central Illinois Safari I suppose. However – there were fences. We loved to go to the place – it seemed dangerous in a way – which made it exciting. You had to walk a long way to the animals and the animals eventually got smart and they just hid from you.

However, here in Samburu National Park – the animals can’t really hide – you go to them. This is a great in theory – until one of them doesn’t really want you around chasing it. We drove right up to giraffe eating, we parked 10 ft. away from water buffalo, and even raced other vehicles to the cheetahs. We drove right up to a family of elephants and watched as mom and son crossed the road not more than 20 ft. in front of us. We watched them eat and rub against trees. They seemed so harmless and happy. We noticed that as they walked away across the road – a younger elephant was still on the other side of the road and seemed to be forgotten. It seemed to be a rebellious, teenage girl elephant that was trying to assert her independence and stay away from her mom and brother. Our guide made an elephant call/noise/grunt (it seemed convincing to me). The teenage elephant looked up and slowly came toward us – click, click, click – I’m getting some great shots of it coming towards the truck. It gets closer and closer and starts to run – I peak from behind the camera to see where it really is in relation to me and realize it’s about 10 feet from us – and it doesn’t look happy.

It stops and stares at us and starts making elephant noises. I realize that the motor of the truck is not even running. In my mind – this was the time to move the truck as I’ve got a mad teenage elephant staring me down. I keep staring at the rebellious teen and say to the driver “Ummm – are we going to move now?” in a calm, yet concerned even tone – never taking my eyes off the elephant. The stare down continues, there’s no sound of the engine starting – I feel like I’m in an old western movie at a standoff. It then suddenly walks away to it’s mom and brother. I guess our green truck looked pretty menacing. It was at that time when I decided that I may not ever make a great ‘field photographer’ as I was ready to bail at the first sign of a charging elephant.

As we drove around the rest of the morning hunting for the elusive lions – I was sickened by the thought that ran through my head – Disney really did a great job on depicting Africa in the Lion King. I hate the fact that my only visual reference of African Safari is a Disney movie – that’s just silly. But I have caught myself referencing back to the movie many times in my head. But this is the real thing – and it’s beautiful and impressive and most importantly – real. As real as that angry teenage elephant.

Kenya Transportation – bring comfortable shoes and patience!

Sherry — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 11:12:24 +0000

We’ve made it to Samburu National Park/Safari which is wonderful but half the fun was getting here from Nairobi. It was a 6 hour drive through Nairobi and the Kenyan countryside. We were able to see the bustling city of Nairobi on a Monday morning. There were people everywhere – like an army of ants going after spilled Kool-Aid. Most people seemed to commute by foot. There are little red dirt paths along every road serving as a sidewalk of sorts. There were some lucky people that had access to bikes and would ride them where ever they could. Masses of people would wait for the Matatus – a minibus/van/taxi of sorts in which they cram people in like sardines. They stop anywhere along their route and pick people up and drop people off – it looks like a clown car as you really can’t imagine how many people fit into a Matatu. This picture really doesn’t do it justice – but it’s hard to take pictures as you are speeding down the hi-way!

The whole thing looked like mass chaos to me – yet you knew there was order to it in some way that I would never understand in my short time in Nairobi. The picture of masses of people walking down the streets reminded me of the NYC blackout or transit strike. But the Kenyans do this commute EVERY day…it’s part of their life, their culture. All of us in the US complaining about crowded subways, backed up tunnels, the Bay Bridge closure, West Side Highway traffic – you truly have no reason to complain. You are sitting in a car with AC and music or a phone. None of these walkers in Kenya had an ipod.

As we drove further into the North the roads got bumpier and more narrow until they turned into dirt. It was like sitting in the back of the bus as a school kid – being bounced around all over and loving it!

We drove by farming and societies that revolved around agriculture. Cows that did the plowing, men walking down the road with their hoes and pitch forks – this was all for self sustenance – not for business. Pictured here are the cows just randomly crossing in front or our truck…thank God for good brakes!

The people here really lived off the land…it was their livelihood – their dinner. They used every bit of available space to grow things – every shoulder by the road had little rows of beans or potatoes growing.

The Kenyan landscape was breathtaking, coming down from the equator and Mt. Kenya – it opened up into a vast plane with little village huts popping up all over the bush. Regardless of how small the road, there were people still commuting – walking – riding – matatu-ing. The people never stopped.

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