Uvidime

Nazareth

2010-08-17T04:35:00.005-06:00

If you're going to build the largest church in the Middle East on the site of a previous church that was on the site of another previous church on the site where Mary was told by God she was gonna have his son, you have a pretty big bill to follow. My suggestion to future builders is to take a look at the current architectural trends and ask yourself "Is this a good thing? Will this last eternally, like Roman arches and Byzantine ceilings? Or is this 1969 and an era of avocado green appliances and shag carpeting?"

Too bad. It was 1969 and they wanted "modern".

The result is a concrete church with polka-dotted columns and angles that disrupt, not inspire.

To add to it, the walls are adorned by gifts from dozens of foreign countries and their own depiction of the Virgin Mary, including this "gift" from America.

To tie in a bit of history, they have created sculptured bronze doors, but the Duomo this is not.

While there are worse places to visit, I would not think the Basilica of the Annunciation will ever go down as one of the worlds, or Israel's, great monuments. But in another two thousand years....who knows.

Jerusalem

2010-08-16T11:22:00.002-06:00

What a city to have changed politics and religions so many times and still remain fairly functional. Okay, there were years when the place was abandoned and lay in ruins, but she always seems to come back. And because of it's location and religious importance to the Jews, Muslims and Christians alike, there is quite a paper trail to document all of this.

The old city is broken into four main sections: Muslim, Jewish, Christian and Armenian, each with distinct characteristics. The Jewish section is mainly new since it was all blown up in the 40's, The Armenian section is quiet and fairly tourist free. The Christian and Muslim section are filled with souqs (markets or bazaars) selling all types of tourist trinkets, clothing, shoes, meat, spices, and food with smells that come at you from all angles, including hot baking bread, fresh ground coffee, sweets, pizza, everything.

The streets are narrow and perhaps give insight to why these people may never get along. The Jews walk fast, run actually, often with a book in their nose, or in deep debate of some religious importance, as they blaze trails through the crowds. The Arabs walk slow, like you do in the desert, and especially the women who can't see their feet and are most likely wearing unpractical shoes, the cobblestone roads are taken with care. Both the Jews and Arabs are toting along a horde of children, and the Arab kids all seem to have pop guns and rifles and they shoot at everyone with equality as they run about. The Jewish kids are very orderly and follow their parents, don't have guns and don't run. But the youngest kids are in strollers, sometime holding four at once in limousine fashion, and have to take each step (and there are a lot) at a snails pace, despite what quarter they hail from. Now, the Armenians and the Christians seem to walk at a medium pace and blend into the souq like they blend into the politics: invisible. But add into this a thousand tourists who zig-zag through the streets from shop to shop looking for that perfect Jesus Icon or silken scarf, and you have a walking disaster. It's impossible to get anywhere at any speed, fast or slow. I'm not sure if it's a lesson in patience or a recipe for disaster.

But the city is large enough to have empty side streets, and if you can manage to not get twisted around, you might eventually get to where you want to go, unless you are just wandering, in which case, you are already there. It's a great place to get lost in, and you can't get too lost because you will eventually hit one of the ancient walls and follow it to one of the five gates and find yourself free and clear of people. Then, you have to deal with traffic.

A Tour of Hezbollah, Lebanon

2010-08-14T13:55:00.004-06:00

I went to Beirut to catch a plane back to Jordan. There was a chance that I could have gotten back into Syria, but it would have taken hours to find out, and I'm just not that into finding out the hard way. A flight all the way to Aqaba was only $200 and it allowed me to enter Israel at the very easy (aka no interrogation) border at Wadi Araba. It seemed worth it.

After visiting the tourist mecca of the Beirut Holiday Inn, which rivals Sarajevo's for best sniper position, I hailed a taxi to the airport.

Well, my driver was from Dahyl, a southern suburb of Beirut and seemed very upset I hadn't heard of it. "We are the home of Hezbollah! You must know. Come on, I'll show it to you!"

He gets off the highway and takes some side streets. Suddenly, there were a few bullet holes on the side of a building, then suddenly EVERYTHING was new.

"This is where Israel attacked in 2006. Everything go down. 182 buildings, but now Hezbollah rebuild it all. Iran helps us!" He shows me immaculate schools and hospitals. We pass a banner saying "Israel, you push, we push. You fight, we fight." and another saying that the USA supports Israel, so the USA did this.

Their famous leader, now dead, has his picture everywhere. he shows me his old home, and the Mosque where he talked. There is a sign banning cellphones and guns on all of the doors.

Then he shows me the Hezbollah TV broadcasting studios - "You know this, Hezbollah TV!" He's shocked when I say I don't, but I tell him I don't have a TV in America and he seems to accept this though he thinks it's strange. Imagine no TV. He wants to know why America gives so much money to Israel and not to homeless, unemployed people like me. I'm kind of wondering the same.

But aside from his narrative, I would have no idea that this was ground zero for scary terrorist activity. Basically, it's a suburb of Beirut between downtown and the airport. It's just Ramadan there and people are out and about and looking thirsty, not threatening. And the driver was so happy to share. So happy to tell all the great things about his organization and how they are helping the locals, because, he says, the Lebanese government isn't helping with the rebuild of homes or schools or hospitals or anything else.

Two sides to every story. Must be time to go to Israel.

Lebanon

2010-08-10T11:34:00.002-06:00

It always seems that when I'm dragging my feet for a new country and not wanting to go that I am the most impressed. Lebanon has done that to me, as India did before.

I don't know if I was dragging my feet because I became just too comfortable in Hama, Syria, or if it was because of the attack on the southern border a few days ago, but either way, I kept putting it off. No longer.

The border crossing is on the Mediterranean and had a wonderful breeze of fresh salt air as I breezed through customs. I got out of the service taxi in Tripoli and found a pension in a families house within thirty minutes. Then off to cruise the old town and was even asked by the locals to take their photos. The old town is not charming, like Damascus, but real and alive. New buildings are built on the old and are each neighborhood sells different things. I particularly liked the furniture section and car repair sections for their friendliness and architecture. Who would have thought. And how nice is it to see woman working again, and their faces, arms and legs, too. It's been a long time.

Today I headed up into the hills to Bcharre, the hometown of artist and painter Khalil Gibran, which is nestled on the edge of a precarious cliff and was cool and enjoyable. I also visited the ski resort town (yes, you can ski in Lebanon) of The Cedars and walked through one of the last cedar groves in the country, which is a shame since it is their national symbol and on their flag.

Now I'm in a posh coffee shop sipping black coffee from a French press and surfing the web, free of censorship. What a difference a few kilometers make.

Tomorrow, the old Phoenician fishing port of Byblos, then Thursday off to the airport to return to Aqaba and headed west to the country you're not allowed to mention in these parts.

In two weeks time, I'll be back at Casa de Pico with the folks and enjoying San Diego with my new dig friends from there. Life is good.

Hama, Syria

2010-08-09T11:19:00.002-06:00

I've been in Hama for long enough to think that if a person doesn't say hi to me as I walk down the street, s/he might be rude or a tourist. That's how friendly the world is here. If you need to cross the street and can't quite manage it like to locals, walk over to the cop at the corner, and he'll stop traffic for you. Easy as can be.

Hama's true charm is the Norias, or water wheels, that have supplied water to the homes and fields since the 4th century, though these are much newer (13th century) with some obvious reconstruction. They are wood in fresh water after all. At times there is enough water and wind that you can convince yourself it is raining which is quite the treat. Any amount of water is a treat after so long in the desert.

Around Hama there are also numerous ancient sites to keep one occupied. There is Apamea, an ancient Roman city which once housed half a million people, the Dead Cities which are Roman ghost towns now overgrown with olive groves, and two amazing crusader fortresses, Crac Des Chevaliers, known to be impenetrable, and Salahiddin's Citadel, buried high in the pine and juniper forests.

It's all very charming and an easy place to wile away the days.

Except, Ramadan starts on the 10th. for the next thirty days. From dawn (about 4:30 am) until dusk (7:30 pm) no food or water can touch your lips. I think I can make it with the food, but it's still over 110 each day and not drinking water seems like suicide. Abdula, the hotel owner here, has told me that Ramadan is to help everyone understand what it is to be poor so they will have more understanding and charity. It's a lovely concept, and maybe I'll try a day. Maybe.

Or, maybe not.

Damascus

2010-08-09T11:05:00.001-06:00

August 2, 2010 (excuse the late date - Syria censors blogs and facebook)

Damascus is thought to be the oldest city in the world. There's been stuff here continuously since 3000 BC, but what's 5000 years for a city? After all, Seattle is 200 years old.

I'm a bit of a bum when it comes to traveling these days. I want to sleep off the last two months mostly, but I do find the energy to examine the fine traditional architectural features in the coffee shops and restaurants. It's the least I can do. Damascus has amazing old streets that twist and turn into small dark alleyways then emerge into vine covered cobble stoned avenues filled with shops, juice bars and cafes. On one street is the church of St. George, and a few minutes later you are at the most important Mosque in the Arab World, the Umayyad Mosque. It's all stunning.

There are signs of quirkiness too. The war museum was co-created with the North Koreans to celebrate the October, 1973 war against Israel they supposedly won (it's debatable if there were any winners). Ahh, how nice to see pictures of Kim Jong Ill again. And the internet won't you use blogger or Facebook, and kicked me off all together when the guy at the wi-fi cafe next to me got to keep going. Who's watching and how can they do that?

But all in all, the people are amazing. Iraqi, Iranian, Turkish and Lebanese tourists fill the streets along with the locals. The Iraqi man I shared a ride with up from Jordan not only let me share his taxi to the hotel area (he continued on to meet his family), but left me with 500 Syrian Pounds, about $12, because I hadn't been to an ATM yet. And good he did since most ATM's don't take debit cards without the Visa logo. I have Mastercard. Locals walk me to the correct street when I am looking for a hotel. They greet you in the street, happy you are here.

I'm happy I'm here, too, though I do look forward to real sleep, a couch, and cable TV. Soon.

The Last Storyteller in Damascus at the Al-Nawfaraa Coffee Shop

2010-08-09T10:51:00.000-06:00

He wears the traditional robes and Tarboosh (aka think Masonic or Lion's Club) hat. He jibes the crowd, slapping his white stick if they stop listening, posing for photos with a quirky, inquisitorial expression. He pulls out his cell phone and photo's us photoing him – all while telling stories from a thousand and one nights ago. There is sword play, and a beautiful woman. There is a happy ending and the Arabic speaking portion of the crowd cheers. He sits high upon his thrown, enthralling the crowd the way a master can.

The story goes that the storytellers, or hawakstis, once filled the streets and coffee shops as as far back as the 12th century. Now there is only one, Abu Shady, and he sits in front of me now, laughing, joking, smiling, and making fun of us foreigners. A blonde girl walks in late and is seated in front of him. He stops and makes a face at her interruption. “Where are you from?” he asks. She's American. Pause..... “Obama!” and he smiles and goes back to his story. I think Obama is the number one word after America, like hot:cold, up:down, right:left, Tom:Jerry, America:Obama. I'm not complaining. It's a good change. He tolerates us, but he plays up to the locals more, in a call and response fashion.

Radio and TV's started to replace the storytellers and now, Egyptian music videos fill the void. But he has been quoted to believe the tradition will not end with him and that things are picking up.

Traditions come and go and come again. I, for one, hope this one stays.

Dig Time Lapse

2010-07-29T07:50:00.002-06:00

Lin, the dig artist, took this time lapse photo of the day we dug up the child's skeleton. I make a cameo on the top right so I can prove I play an archeologist on TV. Usually I just hang out in the kitchen.

Then and Now

2010-07-28T03:33:00.003-06:00

Jonathan said, "If you want shade, dig deeper" and that's what they did. It's amazing how much ground you can clear with a trowel, brush and 7 weeks. This is part of the tower in the fort. As they dug deeper, and eventually found the floor, they uncovered pots and coins. On the north side of this wall they found the skeletons of two camels and part of a human. Who knows why. Maybe the 363AD earthquake. maybe not. That's the thing about archeology, there are never any answers, just more questions.

Among other parts of the dig, there were two more complete human skeletons, glass jars, pottery, coins (more coins than most sites find in years!) jewelry, metal bits, remnants of old seeds, grinding stones and more.

Now, we are done. Every find has been measured, weighed, cataloged and photographed. The trucks are getting washed and being returned. The house is empty. The stove, two refrigerators, all the tools, beds, cook ware and other supplies packed and locked into one room. People are leaving or have already left. It's over. I don't have to boil any more 20 gallon vats of water, or boil two dozen eggs every night. No more pots of soup so heavy I can't carry them.

Time to hit the road.

Digging

2010-07-05T23:18:00.003-06:00

Digging tells a story if you wait long enough. The crew comes back from the field with more and more finds as they get closer to the floor. Camel skeletons appear, then human bones,coins, more pots, glass shards, and the story.

A child is crushed under a wall, apparently, coins scattered around her. There is a metal ring on the back of the head that could be a ponytail holder. She is face down. Was the 363AD earthquake the culprit? Only the pottery will tell.

Pottery is how you date most things and one can get a decently accurate picture of a site by aging the little sherds that they are bringing home. The newest pottery on site suggests the last date of occupation. They are meticulous with their paperwork and measurements, graphing everything. Labeling everything. It's tedious, but paperwork is king. Otherwise, we're just looters.

And looting they do. One site was compromised this weekend as some locals came in and starting digging. They took at least one complete pot that we know about. It's being passed around the back streets right now, like so many other antiquities, hopefully bringing in a bit of money for a Bedouin and ending up in a nice private collection. More likely, though, is they'll drop it.

Karak and Madaba

2010-07-05T22:57:00.004-06:00

Well, half way done on the project so we had to drive up to the capital, Amman to pick up the newest volunteers. Road trip!

We stopped at the crusader castle of Karak, perched high above the town on a slope that would make attack very treacherous. It's a fine site, and fun to wander around, but nothing to make a special trip for I suppose. Maybe I'm just spoiled.

Then we took the King's Highway north to the town of Madaba where there is a Christian population and some mosaics from 179AD ( I think) showing a map of the world which now, in it's mostly destroyed state, shows Jerusalem (shown), the dead sea, the Nile, the Mediterranean and even Karak, where we just were. It's in a rebuilt church and it's like zipping back to Europe for a few minutes before you hear the call to prayer again.

Home the next day along the Dead Sea and back to the kitchen. Twenty-six more meals to go.

Petra

2010-06-26T03:24:00.006-06:00

There are some distinct advantages to working with a group of archeologists whose survey site lies within the boundaries of Petra. First, we can get into the park for free - and it's usually around $50 US dollars. The second is, that when they want to hike back to our site, we get to drive them through the park. Yup, drive!

Petra is the ancient Nabataean city from the early spice trade. Made famous by such movies as the third Indian Jones (where the Holy Grail was) or Transformers 2 (where they blew it up), it's magnificent buildings carved out of the sandstone walls. Lost to the Western world for hundreds of years, it is now one of the New Seven Wonders of the World, and a tourist hot spot for the country of Jordan. It's actually why most people visit.

The amazing thing about the site which you never see in the photos is all of the different colors of sandstone that appear with each new area. The Treasury is brown, but some of the Royal Tombs are red, yellow, blue and black, all swirling into different patterns - looping around doorways and windows. Inside, the shadows and light dance around the stone, giving one the sense of what it has always looked like.

It takes days to see any portion of the park, but most come on tour buses from Amman for only the hottest part of the day. Lisa the photographer and I napped under a tree. I took out my mini-keychain thermometer and noted it was 95 degrees on my right leg in the shade, 105 on my left leg in partial shade, and 115 on the rock next to my head. We are acclimated though, and we noted how cool the day was.

Driving has its own amazing perks. There isn't the 40 minute walk down to the Roman Collinade and "downtown", and you get to see the areas hidden in back where the Bedouin still live in tents next to ancient tombs. Children ride donkeys. Camels run along the dirt path, blocking our progress. We try to herd them out of the way, but it takes miles. The cliffs, with hidden caves and old tombs loom on either side, and eventually we make it to a ridge line were we can see the whole valley, down to Wadi Araba and our home in Risha. We leave the hikers there, laden with water and plan to see them back home eight or nine hours later.

They had adventures of their own, with cliffs crumbling under them, falling and coming up bruised but intact. Two got lost for a time, but they all arrived home in good spirits with amazing blisters. The Bedouins were amazed. They are usually the only people who wander these lands, though they do it in flip flops and without water.

So Isaiah and I drive back, past Roman columns and tourists who look at us in wonder. "You mean you can drive?" looks on their red, tired faces. No, you can't, unless you're special. Like us.

A Visit to Bir Madhku

2010-06-25T01:26:00.005-06:00

I'm alone in our compound all day, and I'm to lock myself inside so to keep out the stray Bedouin looking for work. The hallways echo in their emptiness as I make soup, lot's and lots of soup in vats I can barely pick up. I de-boned ten chickens in one day. How I wish for options.

But it's not all cooking. I went out to the site and actually got to see what an archeologist does. Out the door before 5am, we arrived as the sun was coming up behind the Roman fort. It's still decently cool, but that is relative.

Big Bill was kind enough to give me a tour and pointed to this rubble heap and defined fort towers, the back door, the baths and domestic area. A more recent Bedouin cemetery falls just off the front gate. An ancient well in the back where water can still be found.

Then they get to work, with their paint brushes, trowels and pick axes. They sweep off walls, remove rocks that have tumbled in from old walls, and pile their dirt into guffas - buckets made from recycled tires- then into wheel barrows. From there, the dirt is sifted and pottery shards removed, labeled and bagged. They fill out endless paperwork, measure their elevations down to millimeters and take photos with all of the footprints wiped away. I'm pretty good at sweeping away footprints since I continuously walked places I wasn't supposed to go. Ah, my ignorance.

Little Bill lifts a rock and discovers what appears to be a whole pot, intact. It takes him the next three days to unearth it. Others find old coins, looking more like lumps of corroded copper. We take breaks in what little shade can be found, and its not even 10 am, but they work until one. I've gone through three liters of water already. Must be time to escape back to the coolness of my inefficient A/C. A 100 degree galley is suddenly cool.

My visit has motivated me to cook even better. I see the heat they work through, the earliness of their wake-ups and the endless pursuit that they have embarked on. It's excitement at a snails pace. Suddenly, banana bread seems like caviar. Fresh bread instead of stale pita a religious experience. And the excitement on their faces when they walk into the compound and see cold drinks, massive salads, burritos, or anything, anything but more pita. Hmmmm, what to make next?

The first week in Jordan

2010-06-11T04:41:00.008-06:00

I'm cooking for a group of archeologists in the deserts of Jordan, about 10 km (as the crow flies) from Petra, though to drive it it takes an hour over a somewhat sketchy road or several hours to walk as the team last year discovered.

The site is an old Roman fort with a domestic area and several caravan stations a ways off. On their first day of digging one of the volunteers unearthed a grinding stone, almost in tact. The crew all came back elated, and they cleaned it off and set it in the hallway, ceremoniously next to the truck's old tires. I watch as they clean their pottery shards in the afternoon, handling two-thousand year old relics I have only seen behind glass cases with little care. The pottery expert told me to handle whatever I want. You can even break a piece, they're already broken.

I'm cooking for 26, who eat like 35, in huge vats. I shop at the fruit and vegetable market in Aqaba, an hour away, which one could argue is easier than provisioning for Hawaii or Panama, if only there was more variety. The "Safeway" in Aqaba is a depressing box with only frozen whole chicken or small tubes of frozen ground beef or ground lamb. There are no other options unless you want to buy a goat at the market. I really don't. The only bread you can find is pita. There is jars of tomato puree (but no pasta sauce) and lots of spices, but everything needs to be prepared. No quick meals, here. But the fruit here is so juicy, and the tomatoes and cucumbers are cheap, so I will find a way to make it all excellent. So far so good, anyway, as meal times are quickly a favorite of the day. The kitchen is a decent size with a view of the Bedouin village of Reshia and across the valley to Israel. The only down side is the AC is lacking power so it's hot. Very, very hot.

In addition to shopping in Aqaba, the last two weekends have been sent here. It's the coastal city on the Red Sea and from my hotel window I can look out on both Israel and Egypt. I could probably swim to both if it was allowed. A few minutes drive south and you are at the border of Saudi Arabia. They really tried to share the port access with everyone, and it seems to work.

Aqaba is the exception to Jordan. alcohol is allowed and bars, discos, karaoke and liquor stores line the streets. Pop music blares late into the night and car honk their horns in procession, perhaps for a wedding. There is the Mosque in town and the five time daily call to prayer, but here it does not dominate like in the capital or our small town.

But, I did have to take one of the volunteers to the hospital on our first day. Ah, it's Aqaba, I can wear a T-shirt, I thought, and I thought wrong. The whole place was packed with hundreds of waiting locals, all completely covered. All of the women wore burkas, many with the face coverings. I never felt so naked. But in typical Jordanian hospitality, we were helped though all of the paperwork and whisked past the endless lines and out of there, prescription in hand, in less than two hours. The convict, escorted though in handcuffs didn't have to wait either, so I suppose it's all fair.

Firsts

2010-05-19T11:01:00.003-06:00

I'm at 30,000 feet and blogging. Wi-fi on planes. Different, and it interrupts reading and nap time, but it's free today so I feel the need.

We flew over Mount St. Helens 30 years, 1 hour and a few minutes after her last erruption, though the cloud cover in the crater dampened the view.

Now off to 10 days in San Diego before three months in the Middle East. Funny how the only jobs I can get are abroad.

2010-01-28T01:06:00.004-06:00

Asia - The Top Ten Countdown

2009-05-15T00:21:00.012-06:00

The best-of-the –best, the Top 10, the countdown of a year and a half of Asia,….

10. The Great Wall of China – It’s a wonder of the world for a reason, and being there without a horde of tourists and vendors (let alone anyone else) gave it that something special. But to really top it off, walking out of bounds past the “do not enter signs” revealed what the Wall looks like without the restoration and puts its age into perspective.

9. Indian Food – After a year in Korea, anything guaranteed vegetarian is a highlight. But India, a country filled with vegetarians who know what it means and consider it religious, well, now we’re talking. But add to it the spices and pure variety, and I think it has replaces Mexican to become my most favorite food (but don’t hold me to that once I return to the Americas).

8. Obamaland – Election day was a party described by many American ex-pats by noting that in one day they were once again proud to be American. The party has continued to unite in the most uncommon places. On the beach in Vigan, Philippines a horde of kids all joined me in with a round of “Obama!” cheers. Taxi drivers say he’s a great man. And one man, in a back courtyard of Tibet looks at me once I said I was American and gives me the thumbs up, “Obama, good!” It’s a great change to what was.

7. Lalunga Pass, Tibet – At 5,050 meters, the Lalunga Pass is part of the highest plateau in the world. Your head feels like it is in a vice grip, opening a car door leaves you short of breath and the wind that is whipping the prayer flags into a fury freezes your fingers in a minute or two. But up there, you are looking at two 8,000 meter (plus) peaks on top of a range of snow-covered wonders and the sky, well, there is no way to describe that blue.

6. Varanasi and Kathmandu’s Burning Ghats – As noisy as Tibet’s Lalugna Pass is, the Burning Ghats are quiet. There’s the sound of piling wood, and it crackling, then there’s the ash that flies up into the sky, over the river and into the night. In two crowded cities, the silence is appreciated. The fact that you’re watching a funeral and cremation, and the ash is human, may turn the average person off, but after a while it adds to the peace and reinforces the Buddhist idea of impermanence. Besides, it sure beats the traditional Tibetan burial where they cut up the body for the vultures…

5. Kaesong, North Korea - It was only one day, but I think of it often. There was the lady in the plaid, pleated skirt with the sequence top. The girl who stuck her tongue out at me with such emotion, and the crowds who walked their bikes in circles around the city, waiting at the corner for the invisible light to turn red for the invisible traffic so they may remain in order. It was a time warp and a reality check and a reminder for how far out if touch a government is able to make their people through a little brainwashing.

4. Angkor Wat on bike – It’s hard to top these ancient temples, but add to it the silence and freedom to take back dirt roads where only monkeys and birds reside, and you are able to take in some amazing sights completely alone. And freedom from being harassed to buy T-shirts, postcards, books or anything else, is always welcome.

3. Flamingos and Tigers in India – I was giddy when I first saw a wild flamingo. In hindsight it may not seem like such a feat, but it brought home the idea that those things guarding the entrance pond at the San Diego Zoo really do fly. It also meant I was out of the city. Tigers, on the other hand, now there’s a creature that legends are built of, and when I first saw them in the wild, and took photos, I couldn’t wipe the perma-grin off my face. I held onto my camera so tight afraid that something bad would happen to it before it could reveal its secrets to the world. The fact that it’s only a point and shoot gives you an idea, we were pretty close!

2. Mongolia Gurs – specifically at night when the entire sky opens up to tell its stories from the opening at the stove pipe, these gurs are some of the best buildings I have ever slept in. The paint is charming, the beds lumpy, and the fire in the middle completely dependent on the fuel source – wood and it’s a spectacular night full of heat and comfort, sheep shit, and you are filling it every 14 minutes so think cold, but priceless.

1. The Elephant Nature Park – For a week, Kamoon, my favorite elephant, slept outside of my hut and snored during the night. At daybreak I would wake to the fog shifting through the trees on the hillside, dew on the acres of grassland, and Kamoon thumping hay across his foot before chomping. Later I would feed him and others, even the babies, bananas, and at lunch one would try to steel food off my plate. Elephants don’t like green peppers either.

So that’s my ten best. They all go down best with a good cup of coffee, but you might be best off bringing that with you unless you secretly desired store-bought instant. Asia is a crazy place – so big, so diverse and so full of both people and opportunities. In 18 months I didn’t even tackle half of it. When I started, I always equated Asia with China and Japan, and though I visited both, they can’t even start to define the continent, and I can’t define it either.

Dolma's Tibet

2009-05-05T03:12:00.005-06:00

I went back to Bouda in Kathmandu to see my old students and show them pictures of Tibet - their old home.

The first difference I noticed as I arrived at the Stupa is the energy and joy in the air. Women were talking to one another, stopping to light candles or lean their head against a certain statue in prayer. There were monks everywhere, music in the air, bells chiming with the spin of prayer wheels and a general happiness that were all lacking in Tibet.

I went to the school and as I went through some of my photos, Dolma, the youngest almost started to cry. “I Know her!” she said of the women in a small village who sold butter, dried meat, horse equipment and what not. And the next picture, which I thought was of Everest, was her grandmothers village. She can’t go there. I printed copies for her instead.

Dolma is in the pink striped shirt.
and below is the woman she identified. Above is her village, that small row under the mountains...

Morning in Lhasa

2009-05-05T02:53:00.002-06:00

6:30’s sunrise brought the call to prayer, but not the horns and drums from Boudha, but a man singing out from the mosque next door. A mosque in Lhasa. In China. But no Tibetan horns and drums and chants?

7am brought the first crow of the rooster. Far in the distance you can just make out a few cars, but the loudest sound is a neighbor spitting off the balcony. There is no electricity. Still no drums.

Tibet is here though, as the pilgrims circle the Jokhang like they did the Boudha Stupa, prayer wheels spinning as they chant. Around them are the souvenir touts grabbing you to look, “cheep, cheep, just looking, sorry”. I think they’re Chinese. But away from the bizarre is the food market and stores selling the traditional Tibetan dresses, thermoses, cookware and momos. Here the men still wrap their hair up in red ribbons or silver and coral pins. Everyone holds prayer beads and wears jewelry. Men and women alike with large stones of turquoise and red coral on earrings and necklaces walk the streets and stare at us like we stare at them. I have the universal - I’m American. “Obama!” thumbs-up and now we are friends discussion. As I showed a large group the pictures on my camera, the constant hum of the “Om” was chanted in my ear. I’m going to Dharamsala next, I say and that is one word they know. Dharamsala, where their Lama lives – not the Panchen Lama mandated on all of the pictures now, with their bad print quality and cheap gold frames. Their lama, the Dalai Lama.

7:30 second crow. This is the traditional way the Tibetans told time before occupation according to Heinrich Hemmer, from Seven Years in Tibet fame who revisited Tibet in 1982 and wrote about it in Return to Tibet. I smuggled the book into the country. It’s banned here.

Driving into the city yesterday wasn’t far from what I expected – three story malls, Volkswagen and Ford dealerships, and rows of small restaurants with bright signs in Chinese advertising what’s inside. It’s a lot like China. Now the horns of Lhasa start, but they are the car horns of Thursday’s traffic and it’s sad.

There are extreme double standards here. The Chinese can get passports, talk freely. Some hold jobs dressed like traditional Tibetans or monks and if you are caught talking politics to a spy, you are escorted to the border. At six, when the monasteries close, you can spot “them” changing into their street clothes to return home for the night. These “monks” don’t go to evening prayers, obviously. They collect a paycheck. One tried to hide from me after I spotted him, too late to save the mirage.

After last year’s riots, the number of monks allowed in the monasteries decreased even more. In the Jokhang Temple, which once allowed monks to chant in the assembly hall and tourists watched three deep, now has “monks” lounging on the cushions talking on their cell phones. Once housing up to 10,000 monks, the Deprung Monastery had a population of 500 until the riots. Now there are only 50. The guide was not allowed to tell us this. His brother joined us and was not allowed to talk to the foreigners, as he didn’t have a guide pass. The Chinese would assume he was talking politics and he would be removed. So, there is no way for the Tibetans to learn English, so there is no worry of their passing word to us. Unlike North Korea we are not physically segregated, but they do hold their rules. The Chinese army watches from every rooftop and marches through the streets in formation. After dark, when only the pilgrims are left circling the Jokhang Temple, measuring their distance by throwing their bodies to the ground, armored cars full of armed patrols circle, driving counter-clockwise, just to show their power and disregard to karma. No one else would go counter-clockwise. No one but the ignorant and rude.

There is a bright side, I suppose. One, Tibet isn’t alone. One member of our group was told to remove all pages referring to Taiwan from his China Lonely Planet. LP doesn’t acknowledge that Taiwan is part of China, so it is banned, along with all mention of the Dalai Lama. Two, because of China, the teachings and traditions of Tibet have gained a following. Once closed to the world, students can now come to Kathmandu and India and study and practice Tibetan Buddhism with the monks in rebuilt monasteries. Westerners are learning of the ways that wouldn’t be possible fifty years ago. But really, is this a bright side? Now there are Tibetanologists, like there are Egyptologists, grabbing onto the end of a culture, only held alive in the hearts of those that are repressed or are refugees.

Like the T-shirts,… Free Tibet.

Practicing Tibet

2009-04-24T06:15:00.004-06:00

The last two weeks were spent in the Boudha neighborhood of Kathmandu, an area of Tibetan refugees. Mornings began at 5:30 with the drums, horns and chanting of the Monks. They circle the stupa in morning and evening, prayer beads slowly clicking off to the Om Mani Padme Hum chant that is always present. Women still wear the colored aprons, turquoise and coral jewelry and tie their hair in braids. Some have been gone for years, and the only way home is a one-month walk if they don't have a Chinese passport. Many have never gone to school and most will never go home. Teens are without parents, living with extended family if possible. There's not many jobs, so they learn English, badmouth China and hope. I hope with them.

In the morning I'm off to Tibet myself to see if the stories are true. Is the culture gone? It's also taking Asia full circle, looping around again into the Orient, technically leaving the Indian sub-continent, crossing the Himalayas and back to the country I started from. Or is it?

Saturday at 6am Kathmandu Views

2009-04-10T23:13:00.008-06:00

Nepal is still a place seeped in prayer, temples, rituals and sacrificing animals.... This is a Saturday morning around Durga Square that words seem to not do justice to.

Kayaking

2009-04-09T05:51:00.003-06:00

Strikes have proven to be the norm here in Nepal so I left the road and took to the river for a four day beginner kayak clinic. Day one was on the lake with the final three on the river. While beautiful, my vocabulary was reduced to only two words, "oh" and "shit". I think I'll stick to sea kayaking in flat water...

Nepal - The First 10 Days

2009-03-28T06:22:00.004-06:00

Fate tried to keep me out of Nepal – first with rumors that the border was closed – then a man surely on the Nepalese wrestling team trying to prevent me from getting on the bus and a fight breaking out between him and the bus attendant and several onlookers at the border that needed the entertainment – and finally student strikes that shut down the region around Chitwan National Park and brought the men to the street with small burning fires (which they neatly swept up when they had burned out – though they didn’t dispose of the burnt out van near as efficiently). But alas, I was free of India and in a quaint touristy village of the park where even the shopkeepers left their stores unattended and the daily traffic consisted of the elephants going to the river or off to safari.

The main draw is the one-horned Asian Rhinoceros which sounds much more exciting then they are – even when they do make steps to charge at you and you are on foot. Face it, a rhino is a cow in armor, and perhaps cows in this part of the world have more personality because they have learned to beg. So, Rhinos.

Nepal, after a ten-days at least, is not about what you see, but about what you do. You trek first and foremost. Ok, they trek – I have no shoes (damn Laos!). A 15 to 20 day trek is normal for normal people, though you have to remind yourself that some of these folks cruising the streets of Katmandu have, or are here to climb Everest and suddenly 15 days seems like a walk in the park – which it is if you mean national park. For those of us without footwear, there is kayaking down rivers for 3-days (I’m going tomorrow!), yoga, paragliding, or rafting. It’s an adventure Disneyland without the lines but edging on the costs.

But, unlike India, it is much colder, laid back, cleaner and peaceful. I didn’t realize how intense India was until I left, and to be honest, I am now dreading going back to catch my flight out of Delhi where in May the temperature will be way in the 40’s and the chaos will be such a contrast to this little Eden in the north.

Burning Gats

2009-03-17T06:46:00.002-06:00

It is always the first one that we pay the most attention to, remember and contemplate. Your first job, first kiss, first foreign country, first burning body.

Yup.

I could say Darth Vader, at the end of the Return of the Jedi, was really my first, but even on big screen and Dolby stereo, you miss the smells and actual essence, even horror of the whole event. So, I will have to pass on that being my first and pass on this experience instead. It was still the warmer part of the afternoon, when the gats of Varanasi are quiet and the vendors and gurus have gone off to find shade or an afternoon nap. Boys wash the cows and buffalo in the Ganges at this time, and a few unfortunate workers are still out in the blazing sun finishing up the morning laundry, beating it against the stone slabs placed on the river bed.

This quiet is such a contrast from morning and evenings, where the gats come alive like any beach boardwalk might – the smells of the food and cries of the vendors, men touting boat rides, children begging for a few rupees to buy chapait, tourists with their cameras ever poised for a picture of a guru dressed only in a half orange sarong and white ash. People bathe and pray on the river’s edge. Kids and teens play cricket on any flat area large enough and stray balls peg onlookers in the back. Women sell post cards half eaten by their drooling toddlers who amuse themselves among the crowds unattended but watched by all. Dogs and cows scour the garbage looking for edibles.

But in two gats, on either end of the gats on the Ganges, a different ceremony is continuing as it has many hundreds of years – the cremation of those souls, who with good karma will now be free of this endless cycle of reincarnation. The men, and only men, carry the body, wrapped in white muslin and draped in orange silk and flowers down to the river and bathe it one last time. Some cheer, some are silent. The silk and flowers are removed, and the body is placed on the pyre of wood, then place more on top with incense and herbs and sandalwood. Eldest son, with newly shaved head lights straw from Shiva’s eternal flame and lights his father or mother or brother or sister alight.

It’s the feet that get me. They seem to always stand out from beyond the wood, so identifiable. My first were colored pink, left from Holi, and looked like little girls ballet slippers and white stockings with the flames slowly edging their way closer and closer. White turned to black, then the pink fell away into the smoke. It clears and what could be wood, or bone, protrudes out until it too falls into the ash pile below. You can make out the silhouette of a head, previously bashed in and broken, to let the soul escape. Whose job is that?

Then there are the Untouchables, the lowest caste whose life this is to pile wood and free ash into the river. The untouchables, who not long ago had to sweep the ground after them so even their footprints wouldn’t be touched by those above them. Still they are outcasts, out castes, working through the day and the night, burning 300 bodies a day.

It seems gruesome at first. Then turns to fascination, then even that disappears into some type of peace. Yes, these bodies aren’t needed anymore. These people have spent their whole lives watching this, knowing this ending, and many, from all over the country, even the world, come here to die in the dream of ending this cycle and finally setting their soul free on two gats on the Ganges in this most sacred spot of Varanasi.

Ranthambore National Park

2009-03-09T09:03:00.003-06:00

Wild tigers. Really, do I need to say more?

Camels

2009-03-04T09:42:00.001-06:00

Michael Jackson was my first. He barred his teeth and foamed at the mouth as I came near, but by force from the lead rope passed through his nose ring, allowed me comfort and passage until lunch. Sand crunched under wide foot, the water in a half-filled bottle swished to the rhythm as the sun beat down. Not two hours later this group, my group, was asleep under the shade of a tree passing away the hours that couldn’t be spent doing anything else.

It’s hot.

Black goats with amber eyes woke us up at three, snapping at the branches of our firewood and finding the scraps of lost lunch. We moved on, across dune and through scrub following trails made by herders and their flocks. One camel had a bell. It rang with each step as each plied for the space in the lead of the pack like a race in slow motion interrupted by tasty bushes that took precedence, though we all reached a new campsite together. No winner.

Under the stars and camel blankets in a bed of sand we slept, only the sounds of camel snored. Orion passed. Night passed. No chill, though I pretend it is still crisp just before sunrise as it should be and might be, but it passes to quick to be sure.

King has disappeared, front legs tied together, nose tied to a now broken branch, he wandered somewhere unknown. The man with the turban went to search taking Michael Jackson with him. I had Moola, then another camel, new to the field of carrying fat westerners and he chooses to sit mid path in protest. We scout for lost camels, the guides calling the sounds of desert birds to alert the man in the turban to a possible King high on a ridge, but camels wander here with the holy cows and sheep and goats and an occasional villager who carries no water, only a herding stick. The King is free.

Our camels slip on sandstone going down hills, and protest further progress preferring shade and shrubs. We concur and stop finally for noon to pass. It does. We do. One more hour and we return to the road, and to Jaisalmer and the hawkers in the street stalls and horns of cycles and crowds on narrow streets of people who also came in from the quiet.

Flying through Rajasthan

2009-03-04T08:42:00.005-06:00

You can get a handle on most countries after a few days but after six weeks in India I am still grabbing straws and left surprised. This is not to say that traveling here is difficult – quite the contrary since the mantra seems to be “anything is possible”. Perhaps you would like to look at several hotels at 2 am when you bus arrives or arrange a continuing bus at a moments notice – and of course, it is not a problem.

I left Gujarat, where I was the only foreigner and camel carts cruised the roads under tree canopies filled with flocks of parakeets, and moved north to Rajasthan, the land of kings. Udaipur was James Bond (Octopussy), Jaisalmer was Arabian Nights, and Pushkar is a dry hippie haven – no meat, no eggs, no alcohol allowed, though the holy men and hippie counterparts ply the streets in prayers and beards long past their chins.

Traveling at night in a sleeper bus allows you a bed perched above the rows of seats. It’s a glassed off capsule with the window open, you are only locked in by a thin black bar from the world below you. There is plenty of time to pass as the desert, and every smell from dead carcass to watering hole comes directly into your nose as you lie there. I find myself, in a land barren of trees, wondering if middle schools still have wood shop and find it easier to imagine then even Cambodia, so far away though much more recent. Highway turns to sand as the dunes progress. A lone shop is open for tea as the family sleeps out front on the benches and beds under the naked light bulb. Small towns and new people join our bus, others leave. An albino boy tries to sell bottled water, horns try to move cows. Through this, you drift in and out of sleep like it is all a dream world created in imagination, not reality, which seems to make it all make more sense. What is India and its billion people scattered through wild lands and baked summer soil? Who are the kings and where have they gone? Is this Arabia, or Asia or does the term Indian sub-continent really express what this is – its own creation that can never fit a tag, label or stereotype but only be named by the sari or smile?

Driving in India

2009-02-19T19:11:00.000-06:00

Mason, on the Lady Washington, used to explain right-of-way as “tonnage or donnage” or, “we paint, they swim”. Such simple rules to follow when out at sea with miles between you and traffic. These same rules seem to be in effect in India with a few accommodations made for status. First, if you have a car, you are automatically of a higher class and thus have the right of way over all motorcycles, scooters or camel carts. Larger buses and trucks take precedence but must yield to cars or let them pass whenever they want. Motorcycles have right of way over scooters, etc. This all makes sense. However, when a car owner is driving a motorcycle or scooter, they appear to keep their same right-of-way status (or at least attitude) as they do in a car which gives them the right to cut cars off. If the driver of the motorcycle is also on the phone this also gives him a step up in the right of way proceedings as well, though this does not apply to phone use on scooters or in cars. Now, let us introduce the cow. Yes, this is India where the cow has right of way over all forms of vehicles except pedestrians, who are actually cow herders, who can take up the whole road if they really want because the most any person will do is honk their horn, and over the din of the other 5,000 honking horns, it’s pretty easy to ignore. India driving rules, part one.

Part two is where to drive. For the most part, they drive on the left, like the British who where here when this whole driving thing began. However, they must really like the American’s because there is your fair share of driving on the right as well. Take, for example, that you need to turn right into traffic. While most would consider stopping and waiting for a clearing in traffic, here you just proceed down the side of the road, weaving in and out of scooters or cycles if you are one, or pushing them aside if you happen to be a car, and when opportunity arises, you cross over to the correct side of the street. If you happen to need to turn right and there is a barrier for a center divide, like on a highway, you also just proceed down the edge of the lanes (or actually in the lane of oncoming traffic if you are a truck) and wait for a break in the divide (though not traffic) to cross over. At night, with some vehicles lacking headlights, this gets slightly interesting.

Part three is the horn, which has replaced the turn signal. It appears the rule of horn is similar to Vietnam – use it. Always. Just proceed to drive with one hand on the wheel and the other applied to the horn and tap it to the music. In actuality, there is some rhyme and reason to this all. Honk when you are passing, honk when someone is passing you, honk when you pass a person, camel or cow, and honk when the music requires. In a country of a billion, this means constantly. Horns are replaced every year as part of the annual check-up.

Big cars have more rights than small cars, buses are treated as cars, trucks can only go 40 km/hour and there are no seatbelts. So there you have it – Driving 101.

Big Head and Big Belly

2009-02-18T04:09:00.002-06:00

I'm fat and famous. I actually felt by newest belly rolls giggling in the car - granted the roads are very bumpy, but that doesn't seem like a good excuse. I've been living with this family in Vidyanagar, Gujarat, India for the last three weeks and every meal is vegetarian and delicious, and unfortunately, filled with oil. And every meal I am given seconds and thirds even when I say "no thank you" and it's impolite to not eat a lot. I'm very polite.

I'm volunteering at an environmental education center here and one of my tasks is to go to the villages and teach kids about snakes. Actually, they have to do the teaching 'cause I can't speak Gujarati or Hindi, but I stand there like Vanna White and show snakes to squirming girls. The red sand boas are my favorite and I wrap them around my neck for the whole presentation and watch everyone freak out. Few people here like snakes though they eat the rodents who eat the crops who feed the people so, really, they should like them.

The thing is, most villages seem to have never seen a foreigner before, or at least not one as pale as me. I like to think their treatment of me is because I'm a big Bollywood star now, but that is obviously not the case. I am treated like Angelina is in the photos - stares, autograph requests, people wanting to shake my hand and offer me tea, and give me their seats and flowers and anything else they can think of. I was even interviewed by the local TV station today - an expose on why the white girl came. It's obnoxious. I hate it. I question if $18 million is enough for one film with this kind of treatment. I wish I got paid $18 million. Heck, I'd be thrilled with $18.

Maybe next life.

A Bit in Bollywood

2009-01-30T05:45:00.003-06:00

“London Dreams” will be in theaters in August, but probably not at a theater near you. That may not be a bad thing, as if you saw it, you might see my face in the concert scene at Wimbley Stadium. Now, you may be thinking, Karen, you’re in Mumbai, not London, but those clever Bollywood types found a way to fool the audiences by hiring 29 dirty backpacker Westerners to stand in the front row. Now, you may think, ahhh, that solves it, but these folks went farther and hired 60 foreign students from the universities in Pune to also come and fill in the front of the audience – so there we are, Westerners (aka white), Afghans, Iranians and some others, trying to block out the other few hundred Indians filling the stadium set.

We started filming at about 8pm and didn’t finish until after three in the morning – watching the actors (one VERY famous, the others working their way up into Bollywood tabloid stardom) lip-sync the same song, the Russian dancers (supposedly from London as well) dance and the audience in a hysteric rage that this very “studly” (he wishes) Indian lead singer make it to the big times in Europe. Oh, and he gets the girl, too. See, now you don’t have to see it.

So, I said to one student from Afghanistan, sorry we’re attacking your country. Oh, he says, sorry we’re attacking your troops. That settled, he told me all about the different actors and even how many lights made up the stage’s backdrop. We had a lot of free time. But, as the foreigner extras, we were treated to a catered dinner (at 1am) with all of the staff and actors and even got paid 500 Rupees ($10!).

Like Hollywood of old, the studio was way out in the scrub brush countryside, so it was almost two hours drive back to the city and finally, as the morning sun was coming up over the Gateway to India, and the Taj Hotel – now fixed from the November 26 attacks, it was time for bed.

I’m too old to be a screaming fan at a concert, but I am quite an actor, in case you do end up renting it someday. But I do know that being a big star isn’t all the glamor we claim. It’s boring and repetitive and not something I would want to do day in and out. But for a fun time when visiting Mumbai, I do highly suggest it.

The set - lights on the back of the stage and green screens to fill in the set

That's a rap - the lead actor is the man in the background with a grey sweater shaking hands

What's grosser than gross?

2009-01-23T11:33:00.003-06:00

Put it this way, Manila lies. Their maps say the museums are on x street, but are really in a shopping mall.... really. And the shopping malls say they sell Birkenstocks, a shoe I can wear. And it's a nice mall with fancy stores and three stories and real legit (not like a street market or anything)with Starbucks, the Gap, Mark and Spencers, etc... but Birks! Yippee! I'm saved!

I buy them. I wear them. Now I can't walk. Literally. They weren't real. Now my feet are covered in pus-filled blisters that won't go away (it's been 7 days) even though the shoes have, and now I sit hobbled in Singapore and no way to go anywhere and feel better about all of it. So, since I made everyone see pictures of human bones, why not blistered, disgusting, horrid, deformed feet. DAMN YOU MANILA!!!!

Philippines Cock Fight

2009-01-18T21:39:00.006-06:00

Walking down a dirt road, you can hear the cheers. It's Sunday afternoon and the Filipinos don't play football. Must be...it is... cock fights. The arena is full of men with the glass encased ring. The betting starts with the bookies waving and gesturing to their clients. In the ring the two cocks size one another up, line to line, then fluff their feathers with a friendly, as the two owners hold on to their tails and let the adrenaline start to pump. The sheath is removed from the knife on the claw. Betting stops. The crown quiets. The two cocks are placed on their line, then released, owners stepping back.

They size each other up. They strut. Then fly at one another, meeting mid air, feathers flying. Wings beat, crowds cheer. The referee picks them up and face them off again at mid ring. They continue until one falls submissive on the ground. Dead, almost dead, playing dead, doesn't mater. After a three count, it is a marked looser.

Bets are paid. Money is thrown into the ring. New men with new birds enter, odds ore determined, bets are placed and we start again.

Cambodia

2009-01-13T03:44:00.001-06:00

There are two main events to Cambodia and both can bring you to tears, though for opposite reasons. In the modern times we are introduced to the Killing Fields in Phnom Penh where the bones on the victims are still scattered around excavated mass graves and the skulls are on display less we forget what exactly genocide means. “Should I show the pictures?” I ask then wonder why those who stay at home should be sheltered from this reality. It is like a repeat of the Nazi’s with the intellects, and past government officers along with their families first being imprisoned in S-21, where interrogation can mean anything an evil mind can imagine. It ends at the Killing Fields, not far from the city, then abandoned, where bullets were saved by using machetes. The Cambodia press this week ran an article of the identical thing happening now in the Congo. In Cambodia this happened in 1975 to 1979. Somebody hasn’t gotten the message yet.

The Killing Fields display sign says it best: “How hurtful those victims were when they got beaten with canes heads of hoes and stabbed with knives or swords before their last breath went out. How bitter they were when seeing their beloved children, wives, husbands, brothers or sisters were seized and tightly bound before being taken to their mass grave! While waiting for their turn to come and share the same tragic lot.”

Six hours north (with a stop to buy fried grasshopper or tarantella snacks) is the town of Siam Reap, and where the capital is full of sadness and dirt, with the wide, hot roads full of scooters and road side vendors, this city is ablaze with fine hotels, spas, night life, and anything your wallet can imagine, with the price tag to match. Siam Reap is the gateway to the temples of Angkor Wat, a complex of ancient Hindu and Buddhist temples that take days to explore. While people know it from the scenes in Tomb Raider, I can only assure you that the movie can not do it justice and the beauty and silence of the sites (especially when you are not being bombarded with children begging you to buy bracelets or books, or groups of Korean and German tourists chatting away) is an experience I will always take with me. Taking a bicycle there on my third day, I followed dirt paths that took me to the Death Gate, where the lack of road kept all of the tourists away, and down to small villages of people who live in the shadows of temples, and in the darkened corridors of both Angkor Wat and Bayon without another person to be seen or heard. Like the Great Wall, it is possible to be alone in the world’s most trafficked sites.

So these two sides of Cambodia have made a new side, where children stop to wave at foreigners on the Mekong, where the kids selling on the streets speak five languages and are quick to join into your conversations and tell their own jokes, and land mine victims play the most enchanting music to make a living. Mostly, though, its where people are happy, generally, all around happy and glad to welcome you.

2009-01-09T08:47:00.003-06:00

Just a photo I like - Bayon Wat, Angkor Thom, Siem Reap, Cambodia

Saigon

2009-01-03T21:56:00.002-06:00

Something happened in Vietnam that hasn’t happened often – friendship around every corner, welcoming neighbors at coffee shops and restaurants who welcome you into their conversation and accept you into their plans. Tonight’s dinner was with a Greek and two Israelis. The couple are full-time tourists, they said, with 5 years on the road traveling by motorbike and staying for months at each location. He works as a stockbroker and is free of desk commitments. Kostos the Greek works from his home country but has had a lifetime of living throughout Europe, Australia and Egypt. LTD the couple said – Living the Dream we are and then debated what made a person happy. There seems a clear inverse relation between happiness and wealth, as the farther one is into poverty, the more genuine the smile. The Vietnamese seem to smile quite a bit.

Today I smiled quite a bit, but through my hidden guilt. I visited Saigon’s number one tourist attraction (there aren’t many here) the Cu Chi Tunnels, where the Northern Vietnamese soldiers – the patriots – dug far into the earth and survived for ten years despite the invasion from the foreigners (aka Americans). These patriots were awarded the “American Killer Hero” award for their hard work in their country’s unification, fighting by day, farming by night to feed their comrades. The tunnels are small and narrow and one more time I have found a clear advantage of being short. I was first in and scooted my way through like a local (vs. the larger Westerners who had to crawl) and found myself alone in a dark tunnel that curled under the earth and around corners and B-52 bomb craters. A tourist today doesn’t go far, but the chance to be alone and hidden in the Saigon land was a treat , and fun, and gave me a real, genuine smile.

Saigon’s War Remnants Museum brought far less smiles and as I toured it with Vera from Germany, we had the opportunity to share ideas of national guilt. Agent Orange and Napalm took center stage of the third hall: The Vestiges of War Crimes and Aftermaths. Historical Truths, in Hall 1, left some questions as to the bias of history, but the photos in Hall 2 from war corespondents who died in the field made it irrelevant.

Will I tour Iraq in 35 years?

The Best Dressed Backpacker Bar Either Side of the Pacific

2009-01-03T20:25:00.001-06:00

Hoi An, Vietnam, New Years fashion show brings everyone out in hand-made tailored shirts and dresses draped delicately down to perfect size and fit. The night rains on- the river so high that the first road and part way up the next block is mid-calf, but not to worry since tailored made clothes roll up fine, and if one needs new shoes, they can easily be made the next day. And if your fine Vietnamese silk stains, add a shirt to your tab and it will be delivered as requested.

Each town seems to have a “thing” for the tourists that sets it aside, weather it be a beach or museum, war site or waterfall. Hoi An, though sports a colonial old town, ancient Hindu ruins and a white sand beach, it is most known for the 200+ tailors who replace tourist shops. They are the tourist shops, for this is what one does here. Choose a style, choose your material, and go in for numerous fittings between visits to cafes and tea shops. It rained. It poured rain for days – I haven’t seen the sun since Boxing Day, and it didn’t let up long enough to even take a photo without the blur on the lens. But don your plastic rain coat long enough to make your fitting, and you will have something dry to wear to the New Year’s fashion show and well into the next year.

Ho Chi Minhsoleum, Hanoi

2008-12-29T04:38:00.005-06:00

It seems a trend that all great Communist leaders wish to be cremated but instead end up pickled and resting under orange light that makes them look like a Muppet with glowing hands. Eerie. In Hanoi we have Ho Chi Min, and though it's not the Minhsoleum like the Maosoueum, it easily could be: same line, same walking, same waiting, same wishing it was something else you're looking at.

Another Hanoi attraction is the Hoa Lo prison where Senator John McCain spent some years. Vietnam does a lovely job of painting a picture of how hard the Vietnamese had it when the French imprisoned them here, but how like the Hilton it was for the Americans: all smiled over games of volleyball and pool, not to mention Christmas dinner! What a vacation! What a treat!

Maybe that is all what Hanoi is: Loud, misleading. Peaceful and beautiful in the midst of grime and noise - so much noise.

The End of My Shoes

2008-12-28T20:33:00.006-06:00

I'm a girl but I hate shoes. Actually, they hate me. Despise me. Haunt me. Taunt me. Torture me. They take one look at me and start to laugh that cruel, evil laugh you equate with Disney. So, when a time comes that I actually find a pair of shoes I can wear, I hug them and love them and try my best to keep them around.

My last trip to the U.S. I acquired a pair or actual hiking boots! Okay, they're still Birkenstocks and they cost over $200, but they had laces and closed toes and actual tread so I wouldn't (and didn't) slip in in the snow. They were great - notice past tense...

Christmas day in Luang Prabang, Laos was cool and cloudy and I kayaked down the Mekong River past cliffs so impressive when you look at the sheer size and had lunch on a sand bar with a small peanut farm. Peanuts, who would have guessed? Then off to caves with 4000 Buddhas inside where the monks used to spend days in silent dark meditation. I had even spent sunrise of Christmas Day watching the monks collect food offerings along the streets of Laos among the hordes of tourists who assault them with long lenses and pre-dawn flashes. How obnoxious. But this is about shoes, not monks or tourists or pictures.

The next morning I was sick. Not puking, like so many others have along this last month, but a 15 hour flu with aches (partially from kayaking, but my toes and hair follicles?) fever, headache, runny nose and foul stomach. So I slept the day away glad I had nothing to do on the 26th and hopeful I would be fine for my flight to Hanoi on the 27th. Which I was, though a bit weak and light headed. Which directly resulted in the loss of my shoes...

The hotel maids are really eager to get done, so when I went downstairs to pay, they started cleaning and tossed the bed sheets over my shoes. And they are probably still there. All in all, it's a small sacrifice to the hotel room, and it is less to carry, which is pleasant, but when things are hard (actually impossible) to come by again, you need to take pause and remember.

So, goodbye shoes. I'll miss you. But I'll miss Laos more. What an amazing place!

Elephant Nature Park, Chaing Mai, Thailand

2008-12-21T04:54:00.003-06:00

http://www.elephantnaturepark.org/For a perfect week of truly up-close and personal contact with elephants.

2008-12-14T04:50:00.001-06:00

Itinerary Update

Dec 15 to 21 - elephants
Dec 22 - Fly to Laung Prabang, Laos Airlines flight QV 645
After I plan to fly to Hanoi but I don;t have tickets or anything. From there it will be down through Vietnam then up to Siam Reap...

Chaing Mai, Thailand

2008-12-14T04:42:00.003-06:00

Not only is it warm, but the crickets and geckos are chirping and it's all reminiscent of Honduras. The big difference is the amount of vegetarian food that is to be found. To have a souvenir I can always take with me, today I took a private cooking class and learned how to make six different vegetarian Thai dished. Then I had to eat them all.

Needless to say, I'll be doing some cooking when I return to a house and a kitchen, so it might be a good time to think about inviting me over

On the menu: Crispy Morning Glory (This sauce is to die for!), Green Curry, Pad Thai, Massaman Curry (my favorite), Pineapple Fried Rice (WOW!) and Sweet and Sour.

Macau

2008-12-14T04:33:00.003-06:00

Macau mentions its history with its Portuguese architecture, European main square and churches, but also lets them crumble into dilapidated back alleys. This is charming in its own sense, but when searching for the past, its a little sad. The art museum actually had the most information on traders other than the origional Portuguese sailors which is the focus of both the main museum and the maritime museum. The paintings on display were only mass produced works to be sold to early 1800's tourists (aka bring it home to the wife and kids after 2 years at sea), but it at least shows what was there.

This almost doesn't exist anymore. Now this harbor is a shallow lake surrounded by casinos. Yup, MGM Grand, The Whynn, the Venetian, and numerous other less overwhelming establishments have all moved their way into the Vegas of Asia. I know it seems gaudy, but after being out of the States for so long, I did have to spend considerable time enjoying the show, and I'm not complaining too much.

Hong Kong

2008-12-13T08:55:00.004-06:00

My first Veggie Burger in a year. Who could ask for more?
But there was. It is such and international city, globalization at its best, perhaps. Every language, every color, every retail high-end store imaginable. Money falling from trees and all the fake Rolex's you could desire. And such tolerance (from what you can see in such a short time). But on Sundays, the Filipino's who work as domestic servants (I'm told) are given their day off, and not having a place of their own to go to, just fill the streets and walkways around the waterfront. They're dancing, and playing cards and eating and sleeping and everyone, clad in real and fake Prada, just walk around them without a care in the world.

It's enjoyable, that in a place so large, and so full, it still can be relaxed. Korea should take note.

Searching for History

2008-12-13T08:39:00.004-06:00

I went to Canton, China (now called Guangzhou) to see where the Lady Washington traded with the Chinese 200 years ago. The old trading point during the Opium War was on Shaimen Island, so that's where I started my search. I too arrived by boat, though mine was a 7 cent, 2 minute ride across the Pearl River. Immediately, I was confronted by signs from the old trading past - yes, reference to the Phoenicians! Excellent! I must be on the right path. It didn't take long to search the Island, and while there was no road sign or blinking neon stating "Hey, this is where they traded!" as one might hope, there was proof positive that the Pacific Northwest trade is still going strong in Canton.

Content with my discoveries, I settled down with some Pacific Northwest warmth, just like they did 200 years ago. So it's soy lattes not sea otter pelts, who's counting?

Behind The Wall

2008-12-04T05:09:00.003-06:00

When you climb to the end of the tourist area of The Wall, there is a sign to keep out. When you ignore that sign and continue walking on the well-used path of everyone else who ignored the sign, you come to what The Wall was... crumbling rock, overgrown with trees. The soil in the core of The Wall is being taken by farmers along other sections for their crops, and the bricks are slowly returning to the soil themselves.

The tourist areas are being "fixed". The fate of the other sections is unknown. However, it is this side of The Wall that (for me) is the most impressive and memorable.

Grand Walls with Pickled Mao

2008-12-04T04:12:00.004-06:00

Clinton said, "This wall is grand, this wall is beautiful. It is more grand and more beautiful then I imagined". Well, that's what the Chinese said he said, anyway, but it doesn't sound very eloquent. I rode up to The Wall in the same cart as Bill. Me and Monica from Spain. We had the place to ourselves for almost an hour. Who would have thought in the most populated country at the most popular tourist attraction in the world, one could be alone. Just goes to show that maybe this planet is a little bigger than originally believed. Or, it's just the off season.

There are a few other places in Beijing you can get some peace and quiet, too. One is in the back alleys of the Forbidden City. It's amazing that outside those walls the traffic is piling up, but inside, you hear footsteps echo and crows flying overhead. The other place with quiet is the Maosoleum - where Chairman Mao or his wax double take turns being on display for the thousands that visit every day. The line is six wide and wraps around Tienanmen Square, though it moves somewhat quickly. After 2 metal detectors and and shop to purchase flowers,you are led past his marble statue and instructed to "step in order". Then, under the glass case, with his face lit up orange like a jack-O-lantern, is his body and it is at that moment you hope today they picked the wax Mao, because pickled Mao isn't something you wanted to see after all.
Outside The Maosoleum

Itinerary

2008-11-26T02:52:00.000-06:00

I keep getting asked – so here are my travel plans as far as I have them….

November 29 -- Seoul – Beijing - Air China flight 124
December 3/Dec 4 - - Beijing – Guangdong/Canton – Train (20 hours!)
December 4 to December 10 --Canton, Hong Kong, Macau
December 11 – (Happy B-Day Van!) -- Macau to Bangkok Flight 3601
December 11 to December 14 –work north to Chang Mai
December 15 to December 21 – Thai Elephant Project Volunteer –
http://www.elephantnaturepark.org/

December 22 – January sometime,….. Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Phillipines
After that, India and Nepal…… More details later

DMZ

2008-11-25T21:22:00.006-06:00

North Korea plans to shut its borders to all tourists on December 1. No more Kaesong, no more lunch with 13 courses and time watching people wander in circles around the city to nowhere. No more coffee you buy in dixie cups with an American dollar.

What will be left our the foreigners glance at the North is here at the Joint Security Area, or Panmunjom. There are past memories here of ax murders and defecting Russians. Now there are guards starring at one another throughout the day and night. From time to time there is a meeting in this building, but mostly, it's just a line of concrete and the tallest, most fit examples of two armies watching. And waiting.

2008-11-08T23:16:00.006-06:00

If this bag came out after Obama became president, I would think it had some significance. But really, it is just how much the "made in China" folks know about America.

This is trying to get into the Subway on a Saturday night. There's no population problem, honest!

Four Years Ago

2008-11-05T04:35:00.002-06:00

Four years ago the sun was coming up over some small coral island in the Bahamas. Flying fish sailed through the air and we sailed through the waters on a three-masted schooner. A more beautiful picture couldn’t be painted until you looked closer at a crew who only fought, bitched and bickered about nothing but bad moods. Bush had just been re-elected.

We had been a pretty great crew up until that moment and that morning was a nice look into what half a nation was thinking and how we all might be acting for the next four years. I wanted nothing to do with it. Four hours later our watch was over and we sat at breakfast, tired, depressed, gloomy. “I’m leaving” I said. It wasn’t something I had pondered or planned, just a rash statement that I kept to.

I left in December for Slovakia and stayed a year and a half. From there I ventured to Central America, in rural Honduras and the beaches of Nicaragua. Finally, I turned my sights to Asia for a year in Korea and now a planned 5 month trip across to India. For most of this time, when people asked where I was from, I apologized that I was American. I have had conversations form Egypt to Mongolia with people asking me WHY Americans did what we did – and I couldn’t answer. Overwhelmingly, though, I heard it’s not your people we don’t like, it’s your government. That’s nice, but still not a thought that makes one swell with pride.

So, this afternoon I had my class watch Obama’s acceptance speech and we read along. We talked about the dust bowl and Martin Luther King and other changes in the last 106 years. I told them it had been a long time since I was glad to be an American, but today was a new day. Who knows if Obama will be all we are hoping, but I do agree with what the press is saying – in one day, the image of America abroad has been changed. I can already see it just outside my door. It’s a good day.

31 Days

2008-10-26T20:15:00.003-06:00

That's it. 31 days left. While I'll gladly leave the food and their educational system behind, there are a few things about Korea I will miss. Since I'm procrastinating, I think this is the perfect time to name a few:
1. I'll miss the US Air Force flying their jets overhead way too early in the morning and way too close to my roof. Aside from slightly liking the screech of their engines, it reminds me where I am.
2. The daily reminders that North Korea is a stones throw away. I like watching footage from Pyongyang on the nightly news - they look so Disneyland happy - as in not.
3. Fall. Ok, there will be Fall again, but its a glorious feeling when the humidity disappears and that cold, crispness comes.
4. The subway - it's so easy to hop on, though finding a place to stand is a different story - but once in a while, when you get a seat - well, they should make a Visa advertisement about it - priceless.
5. The rice fields - the perfect place to watch the seasons.

Not a glowing review of good memories, but a start. It's hard to concentrate with the jets circling overhead, so I'm gonna go put on some headphones and drown them out.

Money for nothing

2008-10-09T20:11:00.004-06:00

Planning a 5-month trip that involves 8 countries is a little overwhelming. To add to this, I need to schedule in several volunteer positions that are part of my research for my masters degree, and have been waiting for confirmation from one in Vietnam for over a month - which in the long run, isn’t that long – but in terms of our current financial crisis, it’s an eternity.

A month ago my money was worth something. I’m paid in Korean Won. The rest of the world – air lines, visas, volunteer fees, etc. they like to be paid in US Dollars, or at least their local currency (which means I have to first exchange it to US Dollars since Korean banks will only exchange into Dollars, Euro and Yen). And there is the problem. The Won has dropped in value at an exceptional rate these past few weeks and as I type this, it continues to drain away. It’s like going on a shopping spree for air. And stress.

When I arrived last December 1,000 Won was about $1 – and it stayed that way through August. September things started to fall – 1,100 or 1,200. Not good, but livable. Wednesday the Won dropped to 1,400. In one day I lost over a thousand dollars in value.

So, friends in the US who think your actions don’t affect the rest of the world – so you buy houses with no money down, max out your credit cards, live beyond your means and then complain and go bankrupt – thanks a lot– you owe me some money.

Mongolia is...

2008-10-06T06:58:00.006-06:00

... car camping in a minivan - only it's supped up with 4WD, shortened wheel-bed and lifted. And the road is a rut in the sand with only two street signs for the entire country. And you're traveling with other strangers who just want to see like you do.

... keeping warm with a fire made of wood if you're lucky, sheep shit if you're not. But your tent is a ger and lined with wool to insulate everything.

... like the plains east of the Rockies, or the hillsides of Montana and Wyoming, or the deserts of California, but then a herd of camels cross your path and you remember.

... Amazing.

Fall

2008-09-26T01:13:00.001-06:00

Fall started today. The humidity is gone, there’s that crispness to the air, and the world just seems nicer. They are starting to harvest the rice, and soon the green fields will be back to brown.

I liked summer though, in its extreme heat and humidity, with rain that cooled it off and cleaned it up. Mostly, though, I liked riding home after work, 11pm, as night was well on its way. The moment you left the pavement for the dirt road through the paddies, the humidity would disappear and you were only left with the crickets, cicadas and rice.

Tomorrow I’m heading off for a week in Mongolia – one of those destinations I’ve thought of for years; unfounded intrigue about to be satisfied. In the desert, the nights will be almost freezing and humidity will be a thing of far off lands and distant memories.

When I return I can begin my Korean countdown – 7 more weeks.

The Lady Washington in Kushimoto, Japan

2008-09-19T23:38:00.006-06:00

If you ever thought the old T’s and sweatshirts from when the Lady was launched need to be in a museum, you can now rest easy to know that they are – you just have to go to Japan to see them. Last weekend I had the honor of visiting the US – Japan Amity Memorial Hall (also known as the US-Japan Friendship Museum) in Kushimoto, Japan to experience first hand where the Lady had landed on foreign soil and changed a history.

Japan, in 1791 was still a much closed society and contact with foreigners could lead to exile or execution. So the arrival of the Lady Washington and Grace, the first foreign visitors (minus some dealings with the Dutch in Nagasaki), was not viewed in a positive light. During their 11-day stay, anchored in the calm waters between the mainland city of Kushimoto and Oshima Island, the crew collected wood and water, shot at seabirds, and attempted to trade (though the Japanese were not interested). As a result of their visit, the Japanese expanded their coastal security and surveys as ways to protect themselves from further unwanted visitors..

Today, Japan embraces tourists and this museum is one way of showing it. The Friendship Hall is out on Oshima Island, 45-minutes by bus from Kushimoto Town, and then another 10-minute walk down a quiet residential street to the edge of the island. There is a small parking lot, a US and Japan flag, and several trails that lead to lookouts of the jagged south end where the Lady could not and did not anchor. Upon entering the museum, I am greeted by an extremely friendly woman who doesn’t know a word n English but makes up for it in smiles and chatter. She immediately turns on a CD and David LoVine starts singing Brave Boys. I walk in the hall and am presented a glassed in, preserved version of the Lady’s gift shop I once ran – the tea brick, scrimshaw boxes, pins, T’s and coffee mugs were all displayed as sacred artifacts. The walls are graced with pictures of the crew, including Captains Les Bolton and Gary Stugard.

I first heard of the museum from Bob Kennedy back in 2003 who sent me a photo of the ship’s model that is the prominent piece in the hall. I had never heard of the museum even though I had been with the boat for five years by then. Obviously the office knew, as board member Price Chenault had already visited, and officials from Kushimoto town had even visited the Lady and gone sailing in 1996, and the entire contents of the gift shop had been presented to them. But like many things in an oral tradition, people just stopped talking about it, and the memories faded. But after seeing that photo from Bob, the idea of visiting this museum didn’t fade for me, and now, many years later, I have been there, and I have seen it and I am sharing photos so you will remember it, too.

To visit the US-Japan Amity Hall, fly into Kansai Airport (by Kyoto and Osaka), take the airport limousine bus to Wakayama (40 minutes), then the train south to Kushimoto (2 hours).

Nishki Market, Kyoto, Japan

2008-09-18T00:44:00.001-06:00

Sometimes I get a photo I just really like. This is one of them.

Kaesong, North Korea

2008-08-25T03:33:00.002-06:00

When I told my coworkers that this weekend I went to North Korea, they laughed at me and only said it was impossible. I guess by some standards it really is,... long wait at the border for the North to be "ready", $250 for a day trip, weeks of planning so your paperwork is approved beforehand. And once you are there, you almost aren't because what you see seems to be created and edited like Disney Land (where underground tunnels take away the trash so park visitors never have to see it) or the movie Truman Show (where there never is a sad moment in life).

Walking the streets of Kaesong, North Korea, women in sparkling blouses and pleated skirts, hair perfect, walk gently down the streets to nowhere. Many people have bicycles which some ride, though most walk, all circa 1970 one-speed style. There are no old people, no screaming kids, or infants, no handicapped or infirm or weak or sad. Everone walks on the sidewalk though there are no cars. Everone seems to have a place to go, though there are no stores to buy things and no businesses for them to be going to work in. They all wait at the curb for the light to change so they can cross, but there are no lights to change and no traffic to wait for, but they do wait, and all cross together at crosswalks.

In the countryside villages, a soldier stands on each spur road to protect the citizens from our heavy traffic (6 busses of tourists with three official escort cars). No one else is seen, except in far off fields where a temporary parking lots for bicycles are improvised next to the fields of corn where workers can be seen. The houses seem so nice, with traditional Korean-style roofs, but no pictures are allowed. We might be able to figure out how many families live in each (three per house we are told). There are a few white goats down by the river. There are two stray dogs in dry corn patches. There are miles of potato fields and plenty of propaganda to convice all that potatoes are great. Like rice.

A North Korean madatory guide, complete with the great Leader's face pinned to his shirt, drifts off to sleep next to me. He is too shy to speak with me except to ask my name. I hold back the urge to sneak pictures, not because of the consequences I will face, but that others might.

But the land, minus the barren clear-cut hillsides and thirsy crops, is beautiful. The sky free of pollution, the rivers clear, the streets, wide though empty, free of the trash that litters the South. And it is so quiet, often the only sounds being the communist music playing in buildings and through outdoor speakers in parking lots.

Children poke their heads out of their windows and wave. In another building a choir is practicing. We wave from the busses and a girl sticks her tounge out at me with an air of knowing authority. Others smile, others look away.

But by far the most beautiful thing to be seen is the visitors from the South sitting at the same shaded table sharing a few words with the guides from the North. Our young South Korean guides, many of them women, join in with the all male Northern guides. They see each other every day. They are friends and it shows in their conversations and smiles and even flirting. Romeo and Juliet had nothing on these folks.

So, even though my money will go to buy bullets, not rice, being there helps make it one step closer to an open understaning between two countries (or is it one?), still officially at war.

Korea Tourism

2008-08-06T23:31:00.004-06:00

When blogging about such Korean highlights like Jeju Island, off the southern coast of the peninsula, you can show one of two sides,... the beauty.....

or the reality of the thousands of people you are sharing it with.

Then and Now

2008-07-21T03:31:00.004-06:00

My angles are a bit off, but you get the idea.

July - hot but green

2008-07-18T01:46:00.004-06:00

It's getting hotter and hotter, with temperatures in the 90's and humidity about the same. At least that is how it always feels. To add to it, I sit at work in an office with a broken A/C for the 3rd day in a row, and the third time already this summer season. I was better off in Nicaragua!

But the world is getting greener, with the rice fields and gardens making the world a little more barrable.

Gyeong Ju

2008-06-10T06:28:00.002-06:00

Once the capital of the Shilla Dynasty, this small town in southeast Korea is a walking museum, with tombs, temples and even the oldest astrological tower in NE Asia (for whatever that means). Most impressive are the tombs, which like the Egyptians, housed kings and jewels in gold and precious stone. You walk around this small town, and thses grass mounds are everywhere, so green and so Dr. Seuss-like.

Everything is green now (except the sky which is still yellow-grey)and it makes for nice hiking. The rainy/hot season is starting in a few weeks, though, so time appears to be running short for outside activities.

Buddha's Birthday Weekend part Two

2008-05-19T06:34:00.004-06:00

I missed the bus up to the cave. It left at 8:30, and I was there early, but I missed it. So, I was sad and upset because I never wake up this early anymore so it was quite the defeat to be there early only to miss it. Oh well. I started to walk around Samcheok, where I was staying. Down at the river I paused to listen to the music. A radio blared in some apartment accross the way. Hewie Lewis and the News played on the parks speakers and Buddhist chanting echoed down from a temple.

Ah, it was Buddha's birthday so I figured the two hour wait for the next bus could be well spent in ways other then self pity and annoyance. I walked up to the Jukseoru Pavillion, a temple from 1400-something and rebuilt in 1700 something, but the music wasn't coming from there so I walked on. Just up the road was a temple and the sourse of the sound, though it was prerecorded and the only events were people setting up. Nice. Ok. I'm off.

I continue along my way and come to another temple with better decoration. Come in, they tell me. So I do. Have something to drink, they tell me. And eat. Buddhists Temples are vegetarian, so I do. Chogum, I say, A little. I am the only 30-something in the place. Actually, I'm the only under 50-something. They all watch me eat and I smile and they smile and wish me well. Can I take a picture? Yes, they all chime and more and more ladies squeeze into the frame. Then eating time is over so they take my bowl away, give me more food and send me on my way.

I have 10 minutes to get to the bus, and this time I make it, and to the park, and to the cave. There's always a reason to miss a bus, I suppose, and a birthday party is one of them.

Buddha's Birthday Weekend

2008-05-19T04:52:00.006-06:00

For this three day weekend I headed off solo in search of something beautiful and different. I succeeded. On the east coast of the country is a beautiful coastline of rocky outcroppings and sandy beaches. It would be a lovely place to vacation in the summer when the water warms up if you can get through the reported crowds and barbed wire that lines the beaches to keep the northerners out, (North Korean's that is).

The beaches have two big draws. The first in seaweed, which the locals collect and dry to supplement their fishing incomes (or maybe this is their income?). They collect it with this long pole, reaching out into the breaking surf for floating strands.

The second draw on this coastline comes from an ancient tale, also about seaweed. Once, long, long ago, a woman was out on an island collecting kelp. But, when it was time for her her fiance to pick her up in his boat, the waves were too great. Still on the shore, he watched a wave creash over the rock and his virgin love drowned.

After her death, the fish went away and there was no food for the village. Not sure what to do, the locals errected a large statue of a penis. Why? Well, why not. Today there is a penis park, which houses hundreds of penises, of all different types. It may seem odd, but the tour buses flock to this little village now, so even if the fishing hasn't gotten much better, there is no shortage of income.

Sincheorwon

2008-05-19T04:37:00.003-06:00

I went with some coworkers to the village of Sincheorwon several weekends ago (sorry, I'm behind on my blogging...). It is a mere 8 kilometers to the North Korean border and here in the hills are signs of an old war, or a new war. Who knows which. Maybe both.
Once you get out of Seoul and Suwon, though, Korea is actually a beauiful place. The sky clears up, the hills are greener and there is actually a little bit of wilderness. Well, wilderness might be a little strong, but nature?

Seoul Olympic Torch Relay

2008-05-01T02:59:00.004-06:00

The torch runner is surrounded by the men in yellow.

2008-04-27T15:50:00.003-06:00

I've always loved a good protest. Since high school when King George I attacked Iraq and I protested as my senior government class final project. Easy A. Then there were the SDSU protests I covered as a photographer, in the middle of the fights, arrests and burning flag (incidentally that photo is now part of permanent display at the Starbucks on campus). In Seattle I again went to an Iraq war protest and sang Sesame Street while riot police surrounded us and forbade us to leave. Interesting.

So, as the Olympic torch made its way to Seoul I jumped on the opportunity. There wasn't much to see really. Thousands of Chinese who were given T-shirts, flags and free transportation by their embassy. The Tibet protestors were separated and made their own march around the city. That was a good call, as the Chinese were quite overzealous and what incidents did occur came from them (throwing rocks, a few beatings, etc.).

What hasn't gotten the publicity that has been awarded to Tibet, though, is the situation of Northern Koreans. Those that flee the country tend to head to China as its easier then crossing the DMZ and the mine field that separates them from the South. But China will send them back if they are caught and that means one of two fates: several years’ hard labor in a work camp/jail, or public execution.

The man at the torch relay who tried to light himself on fire was protesting that. His brother was executed. You can't blame him for wanting his voice to be heard.

That was Sunday. 8,300 police guarded the route. Helicopters flew overhead. You could barely see the torch with all of the guards running alongside.

Monday the torch went to the North. There were no riots, no police, and only two men accompanying the torch barer. The crowds cheered and waved flags and seemed happy. They showed it on the evening news here, a rare glimpse.

Olympic Torch Rally, Seoul

2008-04-27T15:44:00.003-06:00

Respect the Olympic spirit,
All men - are brothers!
Interfere with China's internal affairs,
Annihilate - in the far distance!

Just when you think you've seen it all...

2008-04-17T01:15:00.004-06:00

I've thought this before. Often, actually, as I become aquainted with my newest surroundings. But a gull hanging from a wire over a river with a broken foot? Well, it's not ground shaking, but it is enough to give you pause.

There are other amusing things here - McDonalds delivery, rat sized dogs dressed in tu-tus or jeans and a t-shirt (really, pants for dogs), with their ears died orange with matching barrettes. But, when looking there, one thinks of the oddness of people. Now, if this bird was in fact hung by a person, I would have to wonder how more than why. And if this is just nature, well, I'm glad I'm not a gull in Suwon.

City Farmers

2008-04-13T22:02:00.006-06:00

A year ago, my neighborhood didn't exist. Google Earth shows it as a dirt lot. What was there, though, were the rice fields, now wedged between highways and apartment blocks.

Now that spring is here, any nice days have people out tending their plots. There might be a bicycle on the street, or a taxi. They kneel in the orange dirt and scrape away the dust and debris that smother their sprouts. They break at noon for noodles. Then work some more.

Their plot may be an acre, or just between the building and the street. They are always bleak. Uninspiring. Spring. I ride my bicycle on this route to work everyday, glad that everyday won't last more than a year. Bleak.

What have I been doing?

2008-03-27T03:40:00.001-06:00

If you must know,... I'm trying to use chopsticks. Left handed.
That's about it.
(It really is more time consuming than one would think,...)

It Might Be a Developing Country When,...

2008-03-14T06:44:00.002-06:00

The largest currency is equivelent to $10.

Going Green

2008-03-10T03:25:00.002-06:00

The trees are still brown, sky's still grey, but I'm feeling green. Spring is here - its warm (though no new plant growth), but warm enough to be outside.
I bought a bike and am riding to work everyday (which is faster than taking the bus, actually, though I do miss the grinding gears and sweaty standing only room). I'm a green belt in Teakwando, too.
I went to Suwon's opening soccer game at the World Cup stadium and sat in the sun as our team won 2-0.
I went to a Buddist Temple, bowed, lit incense, and listened to a monk tell me I should be married over sweet raspberry juice. The temple smelled like the Port Townsend Co-op.
And I soaked in the hot tubs and saunas late into Sunday night.
That was just one weekend.
With spring, I actually feel like doing things again. Hibernation is over.
It's good, I like it. (That's for you Van - along with I like bread. I like money, too!)

Yesterday...

2008-02-26T01:52:00.002-06:00

Yesterday brought South Korea a new president, Mr. Lee, and snow. Mr. Lee plans to make SK the 7th strongest economy in the world and improve relations with the North once they dismantle the bomb. The snow plans to melt today and make way for spring. I have high hopes for spring. It will mean getting out of the city, away from the piles of garbage and scattered trash that plasters my neighborhood (or the hood by the looks of it). It will mean I don't have to wear three shirts and two jackets everyday. It will mean a lot of great things. As for Mr. Lee? It will take him a little more time.

Valentines

2008-02-15T06:48:00.002-06:00

On February 14, girls give boys candy
On March 14, boys give girls candy
On April 14, single people have to eat black noodles

I don't think this culture celebrates the singletons, much.

Lunar New Year

2008-02-15T05:25:00.004-06:00

February 7th was New Year, welcoming us into the year of the rat.

It's a family focused celebration, where the young bow to their dead ancestors and receive money. They eat rice cake and soup, visit temples and leave flowers at the cemetaries. It's not the firework and parades you see on the news.

New Years day I went to Beomosa Temple, walking the 40 or so minutes through the forest instead of taking yet another bus. Locals took off their shoes and prayed at the Buddah shrines. I took pictures.

After, when returning to the subway, a mass of thousands of people we're walking up and down one road. The people walking up were somber, those going down were shopping at a variety of street venders and makeshift food stalls (mostly being silk worm larva and flesh on a stick). Where did this road go? So,I went to to find myself at the cemetary. Me and 10,000 of my best friends.

It's odd, though, how often I am the only foreigner around when there are so many here.

Busan

2008-02-15T05:07:00.004-06:00

Busan is the worlds 5th largest port and South Korea's second largest city. It is reminiciant of San Francisco with its varied fish markets, harbors, boat building, parks, and bridges, San Diego for the beaches, LA for the movies and fashion. I spent six days there over the New Year break and spent most of it wondering why I didn't find a job down this way. Beachside.

Just one more reason...

2008-02-12T03:23:00.000-06:00

This is just one more of the millions of reasons to be a vegetarian.

Skinned seal and turtle
Busan, South Korea

Contrasts

2008-01-30T21:42:00.000-06:00

At times, the fast paced Korean society seems to drift back in time, reminding the casual observer, a.k.a. me, that life here hasn't always been running at 200 km/hr.

Today, while walking to the bus stop in the Thursday morning cold, a group of workers huddled around a small fire they had built in the empty lot. In a few weeks that lot will be a new apartment. Today, it was burning branches cut from some unsuspecting urban tree growing between concrete and asphalt.

At other times, the recycling person comes by. They are pushing around a huge cart, by hand, piled high with cardboard which blocks their view through the streets, between the cars and high rises. Nicaragua at least has oxen to pull the carts.

This from the same place that builds entire cities in a year. There are elevators for the cars in parking garages. Phones have TV and internet that work even on the subway underground. Contrasts of the then and now.

zzzzzzzzz

2008-01-24T23:41:00.000-06:00

There is nothing wrong with putting your head down on your desk and catching a few winks during the work day. Some of my co-workers even have pillows here at the office. I've succeeded a few times (after waking up way to early to watch football), but on a normal day, I give it a shot but find myself laughing at the concept, and thus can't drift off. The laughter wakes me up a little, but not enough.

It's 30 degrees in the office. It's negative 2 degrees outside and in an hour I have to walk to the bus so I can get a propper nap in before Friday night. I think I'll try and practice again.

Secret Touchdown

2008-01-13T17:18:00.000-06:00

3 am Monday morning and I was up watching the Chargers attempt the impossible victory against Indy. There was the plan to watch it on the internet - streaming from www.myp2p.eu which doesn't work on my computer (I am assuming because of Vista), but does on my neighbors who was prepared for early wake-up call. Only, being 3am Monday morning, they were showing it on broadcast TV - channel 73.

As Rivers goes for the quarterback sneak, the commenator yells, "Secret! Touchdown!" Sneak. Secret. It's all good. They won.

Now its 8.30 am and I'm at work, watching halftime of NY/Dallas. The internet is such a lovely thing. 3am is a little less lovely.

New stuff

2008-01-10T15:58:00.001-06:00

After refusing to eat the larva on grounds of being a vegetarian for 18 some years, I figured it was time to really delve in and try something new.

First on my list is language lessons. I’m off to a great start, as in I can almost read, though I don’t know what the words mean. I can even kind-of count, though 80 always sounds like, and comes out as “Pile Shit” instead of some version of what it should be. When I say 18, I sound like I’m saying “fuck” in Korean.

Next is Tae kwan do class, which is the national sport of Korea. Five days a week I go and kick things, usually the air, though sometimes I miss. I’m not bad, for having done it for four times. I look pretty silly in the white uniform and I don’t scream ”Hi-Ya” which gets me in trouble.

Finally, as a direct result of the cold, and the facts that muscles I didn’t even know I had have been aching for the last four days, (I am assuming from my adventures in kicking air), I also adventured off to the local spa. The spa is another great Korean tradition directly resulting in their desire to be clean and that in the past many homes didn’t have baths or hot water. Similar to Eastern European spas (minus the mineral water), you lounge in a variety of heated pools, saunas and steam rooms. Here, though, you are segregated and naked, which has its advantages except when the 9-year-old girls want to practice their English. Then the naked thing is a little weird.

So, that’s my first month.

Dinner with a side of larve

2007-12-28T06:42:00.000-06:00

Sitting on the heated floors, in your socks, drinking soju (potato liquor) and asking "What are those?"
"Ahhhh, they make silk"
Mmmmmmm, good.

Seoul Shopping

2007-12-28T06:35:00.000-06:00

Christmas Eve in Korea

2007-12-24T04:31:00.000-06:00

Things, as expected, are a little different here. In a country where 50% of the people claim religious affiliation, about 23% are Buddhist, 20% Protestant and 6%Catholic. But there is still Christmas - a national holiday, with the required shopping mall sponsored mechanical full-sized dancing Santa’s, holiday light displays (with everyone taking pictures of them on their cell phones) and endless Christmas songs in English so they are stuck in your head for the rest of the day. George Michael's "Last Christmas" appears to be one of the unfortunate favorites.

But the event itself is quite different. You buy cards, not gifts (except for little kids who happen to like Santa and gifts so they get both). And the day is not spent with your family, but rather with your friends or significant other, and you go out to lunch or dinner, then off to the bars. It's just a day off (except for restaurant and bar staff), which in this hard working culture is greatly appreciated. There is no Christmas trees, Christmas stress, last minute shopping, mall crowds - well, those always exist, worries if you got the right gift, or enough gifts, or you forgot something needed for dinner. All of the holiday stress just doesn't seem to exist. Instead, here on Christmas Eve, we work a normal night, fully prepared to give the students detention for a failing mark, which would require them to stay here at the school until almost midnight. It's mellow and peaceful and there is that one great anticipation hovering in the air. No, it's not about the day off, or the drink. It's the expectation that in one more day the Christmas music will finally stop and I'll actually get to know what Korean music sounds like.

Election Results

2007-12-19T06:29:00.000-06:00

As fast as everything is here, election results from todays election were made public by 8 at night. The winner is #2 , as seen on the 12 posters hanging in the streets. Former CEO of Hyundai and Mayor of Seoul, Lee Myung-bak is also one of the richest men in the country and has a criminal-probe facing him for previous fraud charges. But, in a country rife with curruption and fraud charges, maybe it is just fashionable. Or, maybe not.

2007-12-19T00:58:00.000-06:00

Yes, it's a real dog, and yes, the ears are dyed pink.

My ears are a little pink, too, but that's from the cold.

What a million people starts to look like

2007-12-18T05:42:00.001-06:00

Suwon on Sunday

2007-12-18T05:20:00.001-06:00

These are sections of the wall that surrounds the old part of Suwon. Built in 1794 to become the new capitol, the wall now is a 5km long world cultural heritage site. It makes a great Sunday walk except for the ice still on the higher sections which brings back some old winter memories of falling - hard. Alas, though, I didn't.

No means Yes, Again

2007-12-12T03:19:00.000-06:00

No, in Korean is pronounced aneio, which sounds almost the same as “ring” in Spanish if you happen to know that word. As luck would have it, though, it is also similar to ano in Slovak, which means yes. Ano is pronounced, “ahhhh, no” as in do you want another glass of wine? Let me think about that. No, I had better not, but in your hesitation you say yes. Yes, on the other hand, is pronounced ne – just one short syllable. No, in Slovak, is nie, pronounced the same as yes in Korean except with a small stutter between the n and ie making the word sound more like “nnn-yeah” in one long syllable. To put it bluntly, no is yes and yes is no.

Walking home from work it started to rain. A woman with an umbrella stopped and asked me if I wanted to share her cover. Well, she said something in Korean and pointed to the umbrella then started to walk with me. I said ne, thinking it means no instead of yes. But, as a true klutz I’m saying yes and pointing to my hat and walking away from her. Hmmmm, I’m confusing myself.

But this is a nice example of just how sharing people are here. That is until they get behind the bulk of metal that are cars and all kindness seems to dissipate. My neighborhood is a jungle of small 4 and 5 story apartments (12 stories seems the norm) and uniquely enough, no two buildings are the same (which is also not the norm as the rest of the apartment blocks look more like the Communist Bloc). In an almost perfect grid, narrow streets separate us from our neighbors and come night cars are parked and double parked and even triple parked so one can barely drive down a road, that are two way. So, if you happen to be going down a road and come across a car driving the other direction, one would logically think that one of the cars would back up. That unfortunately does not seem the case. Here, both cars end up waiting. And waiting. Traffic backs up in both directions making the possibility of backing up near impossible.

On the night I arrived I was in one of these said cars. The oncoming car, which would have only had to back up 50 meters or so, refused, and after a long wait, my driver and I backed up so the other could pull into an extremely narrow driveway. This process required an eight-point turn as the roads are narrow and blocked, and after about five minutes, the car had successfully gotten out of our way so the traffic behind him could back up.

Driving in general is sketchy. Walking across the street is probably the most dangerous thing I will do here. Unless I keep confusing people with my superior language skills, in which case, I have no idea what will be.

A Coffee Drinker in a Green Tea World

2007-12-10T03:02:00.000-06:00

When a coffee pot at the GR-mart costs over $100 dollars, you know you might be in trouble. This is not a state of the art espresso machine that grinds your beans before seeping in perfectly heated, filtered water. No, it’s just a Braun 12-cup plastic coffee pot. The ten-cup pot was a cheap $60.

A 100 gram bag of Starbucks coffee is $17. Yes, this means that there is a Starbucks here, located on the 2nd floor of the E-Mart (are you seeing a trend in the way they name their big stores, a.k.a. K or Wal), but it also means that a mug of house coffee is $4 and weak as water. Globalization is disappointing.

My other options are McDonalds and Dunkin Doughnuts. I think I might pass. It may be time to just give in to the green tea. I could save a small fortune in just a weeks time. I could also start eating pork and going to church.

The solution here, so far as it seems, is to regress to my Slovak habits and pick up the fine art of cappuccinos. No, they are not served on silver platters but there is at least a taste of coffee in them. Next to the school is a Paris Baguette, a lovely bakery and coffee house with adequate coffee and an interesting assortment of breads. Like Pea Bread. Yes, a Danish with split pea filling, slightly sweet, slightly gritty, taste acceptability to be determined when my taste buds acclimate. As with the weather, it might take a while.

Yo Regresso a E.E.U.U.

2007-10-27T10:43:00.000-06:00

I'm back.

At the Huston Airport I flushed paper down the toilet. That was mildly exciting. I starred at the prices ($7 for a burrito?) and watched the people walk buy. One guy threw his empty Sprite bottle in my luggage cart and I glared him down until he removed it. He threw it on the floor instead so I ended up picking it up with the hopes I would catch up with him at customs. I really wanted to throw it at him in front of all of his business partners he was traveling with, and tell him he wasn't in Tegus anymore and he had probably spent his whole trip bitching about the place only to become just like it. But, I didn't. See how mature and refined I've become. Ugh.

But, here there is tap water you can drink (but nobody does).
Here there is way less pollution (except the San Diego fires have pretty much taken care of that).
Here there are trash cans (that a Sprite bottle can't make it into).
Here there are all of the things that the people down there want. Money, (but you can't afford to buy things), jobs (if you want to make minimum wage), and freedom (if that is what the Patriot Act says...).

But I'm being negative. There are a lot of things about being back that are nice. There is a complete lack of assault riffles on the street. I've been here for several hours and haven't seen any bullet proof vests. You can put your bags down, look away, and your bag will still be there. There are fresh vegetables and dogs that have homes and don't have nipples dragging on the ground as a result of the last 18 batches of puppies they have fed. Babies have clothes. Kids have shoes and there is electricity all day and all night.

Did I mention there is hot water, too! I'm a big fan of hot water now.

So, I'll be in the States until the end of November. Drop me a line and say hi and we can get some coffee.

Saturday and the Scorpion

2007-10-20T16:57:00.000-06:00

There is a scorpion on my wall. I used to think they couldn’t climb because the ones in Honduras couldn’t make it over the lip of the shower, but now I know better. I’ve been watching him all day, well, as long as I have been up, anyway, and that hasn’t actually been very long even though it’s now 4:30. I guess I need to appreciate these last few days of vacation before it’s time to work again.

I figure there aren’t going to be any scorpions in Korea. Well, maybe not in the city, anyway. I like that idea much more then I like the fact that he, or she, is still staring down at me, with his large shadow projecting on the ceiling. I think if I leave the bedroom he’ll move and go somewhere I don’t know about and that is even worse than knowing where he is.

If my room was clean I could get the quidador to do something about it.

If my room was clean it would mean I was packed. Or the maid actually did her job.

How silly to have a maid.

How silly to have a scorpion on your wall.

Small Worlds

2007-10-12T11:45:00.000-06:00

Sometimes the world shrinks on you.

I’m sitting at a bar in Nicaragua, minding my own business then later sharing stories with a TV guy who is visiting town to do a story on last year’s murder. I’ve been places he hasn’t, he’s been everywhere else. And as the stories continue, he decides to tell me the time he spent a few days on two “pirate” ships in San Diego.

“They aren’t pirate ships”, I tell him with all authority. “They’re tall ships.”

“No”, he insists, these are really pirate ships.

“Was one of them a wooden brig with square sails that was in the Pirates of the Caribbean movie? And the other one named the Hawaiian Chieftain?”

He looked at me in wonder then, because there is no reason why a girl in Nicaragua should possess this type of information that was over three years old. “We were filming Blackbeard” he tells me, and with that I am able to name off three or four people that he had met, and share stories about all of their quirks and habits as is common to know of anyone you have sailed with, and he could do the same.

That boat, the Lady Washington, was my home for over two years (not all at once, but on and off). I lived there longer than any one house since I left San Diego at 19. I felt homesick for it. I felt homesick for someone I could tell “remember when” stories with, or even just someone that had been somewhere I had.

Now I’m thinking it’s time to go. I’m not sure where, maybe Asia. I’m watching a praying mantis crawl up my wall. Regaetone is playing on the quitadore’s radio set, coming in and out of static. It’s going to rain again. The bay is a milky brown from all of the mud that has washed down this week, the trees are thriving green and I’m going to miss all of this horribly because Nicaragua is really a beautiful place, but I know now that my time is very limited now.

I have a phone interview Sunday night. Wish me luck.

Zorro Libre

2007-08-20T18:43:00.001-06:00

It was one of those nice days you're just glad to be a part of. After a life in captivity, I went with friends from the local vet and released two small foxes back into the wild. They were origionally at a small private "zoo" (and I say the word loosly as it was more of a prison with 20 different animals in a 2 foot by 2 foot cage), then spent the last three months getting healthy and learning to hunt. Tonight they are spending their first night alone, high up in the forests above Lake Nicaragua. Good luck to them!

Medusa

2007-08-14T19:09:00.000-06:00

There is an odd hurricane heading towards Hawaii tonight, and the tail of her has shifted the weather in our sleepy little fishing village here in Nicaragua. The wind, which usually comes off of Lake Nicaragua and creates perfect barrel waves for the surfers, has shifted to come from the east, bringing all sorts of wonders ashore. Today it brought the jellyfish: small blue ones not much larger than a quarter. Their bodies lie in the sand, like three-dimensional, clear jellybeans. Only, reaching off of them are blue stinging tentacles up to a foot long. I would not like to meet them in the water. Lots of other people did though, and as I walked a friend's dog up the beach, you could see people jumping out of the water in pain, and staff from the beachfront restaurants bringing out vinegar.

Along with the jellys (called Medusa's in Spanish, how appropriate!), there were also puffer fish, and a load of debris. Saturday is the international Project Aware beach clean-up day, so there will be no shortage for us! See if there is a clean-up in your area. We can compare trash.

Living high on hog hill

2007-08-07T17:15:00.000-06:00

I'm housesitting for two weeks at an amazing 3000 sqft house with a deck overlooking the bay with an amazing seating area if there is a breeze. When there is power (it goes off 4 hours each day on a rotating schedule) there is even hot water straight out of the tap. If not, there is no water and for some reason they installed electric appliences. Overall, though, its quite a treat. But the best part of it is the neighbors that I look down on. On one side is the new house being constructed by the first female president, Violeta Chamorro. On the other side are the pigs, tied to the tree in the neighbors lot, amongst the cocks that crow at all times of night (streetlights or just city cocks?) The pigs really squeal, loud if they are being fed, or not being fed, or if they are being brought from one tree to the next. Either way, pigs.

I like looking at the pigs from this Miami-Vice decorated house. It's a reminder that just because the gringo's have come in to build, it doesn't mean the locals need to go away.

Sailing South

2007-07-08T12:59:00.000-06:00

It's a little known fact that in Guatamala you actually have to ask for an entry stamp, but if you plan to exit via boat, you need an entry stamp to get an exit stamp. To get this, you of course need to drive the 2 hours each way back to the border, bribe the customs man to please do his job, hand him 100 Quetzals (8 to the dollar) and await your beautiful blue stamp. This being done, you head back north, only so you can head back south, only this time by water. How convienant it all is!

Sailing south there was an unusual headwind slowing our progression, but allowing us to go directly into a thunderstorm that lit our way, much like a stobe light, for the next six hours as lightning crashed into the sea all around us. In the morning there was nothing but the reflection of the clouds on a sea of glass. Dolphins greated us and played briefly in the bow wake before deciding we were too slow. Turtles mated around us, preparing for their trip to shore. The likes of El Salvador and Honduras sillouted in the sunrise.
Ah, El Salvador, where when driving north, a bandit tried to stop our car with a ski mask and shot gun. Ah, Honduras where I constantly refer to the country as "we", not quite ready to admit I don't live there anymore. Then, on the south end of the bay is Nicaragua. My newest
home. The engine dies. The wind dies. We drift, the finally sail, but never get the engine working again. With luck the wind is favorable to get us part way into the estuary marina at Puesta del Sol. Part way doesn't really cut is against a four knot ebbing current and we get a tow in by one of the only harbor crews in the country. This is no small time marina!

It is in fact a 5 star resort. So while we try to fix the moter, we drink endless amounts of ice water in an attempt to stay cool, while watching the fish jump and the fishermen in pangas go after them. Three days passed, no moter so we drive back south.

Typical sailing trip. Right?

It's Time

2007-06-13T20:07:00.000-06:00

I can hear it everyday at school, "It's time for summer!"
I can hear it everyday in the thunder, "It's time to run for cover."
I can hear it inside my head, "It's time to go."
So, that means it's time to go. I'm leaving Honduras, the mango trees, the cats, the rain. It's time to go.
I'm replacing all of this for,....
mangoes, rain and the ocean. I'm going to Nicaragua.

It's Official - Rain!

2007-05-29T21:34:00.001-06:00

Monday afternoon it happened. The clouds gathered over, around and through the mountains surrounding our valley and it rained. Ok, not in the valley, just around, but with it came the lightening and thunder that should visit us on most of our remaining days. Now it is raining here, too, with the complete light and sound show. It's the slow rain that we ended with in December, but the sky is so loud, the way it rumbles and shakes, that the lack of complete downpour is not a let down at all. And as the rain comes, the year winds down to another ending.

With it I just want to remember my kitten, one of my favorites, who is now burried along the rock wall that seperates us from Honduras... but such is life here. Quick.

Not Something You See Everyday

2007-04-28T10:24:00.000-06:00

There was a car driving down the road as I passed on my bicycle. The roof was caved in and there was no windshield. Two young women were driving. Ahhh, now that's not something you see everyday, I though to myself while zipping by. Only, it is...everyday.

But you don't see rain like this everyday. The kind where you feel like you're back standing under the waterfall. The kind where the world floods in the first few minutes, and the drainages on the roads fill up and then things flood even more. The kind where the lightning explodes overhead and splits to fill both halves of the sky.

Or grass that turns the world green overnight.

Or the June bugs that have invaded everything. The students collect them by the jar full, and they crawl and scamper over each other in an attempt to be on top, then to burry themselves again, and the kids throw them in your face like a dinner plate and I become very glad, once again, that I'm a vegetarian.

Or the fact that the people here believe every warning they hear. Friday was predicted a week in advanced to be the hottest day of the year, warning folks not to venture outside at 11 am or you will surely contract skin cancer. Schools all through the country closed, and a quarter of our kids stayed home and the weather was actually quite cold. And in Tegus, the people, now not working, took to the streets and no traffic could get through.

But I do see the sun. Everyday. And everyday I see the world waking up from the dry season we never really had, and the birds eating the mangos in the trees, and me eating the mangos from the trees. And everyone else, too. And everyday I see a little more of this little corner of the world I'm currently calling home.