Home again, home again

Okay, it's a little belated. And it's not international. But I think it's always best to let people know that we made it home alive.

I thought I'd write a post about our Pan-Asian Airport Tour 2011. I was shuttled through Hong Kong and Tokyo, while Carla spent several hours in South Korea. My flight ended up having an eventful start-- I got an email the day before letting me know that my original flight had been cancelled and giving me a new schedule, only to arrive at the airport and be told that I was not booked on the flights I was told about. It took me two entire hours of talking to various people on the phone and in person before I straightened it out, but in the end I made all my connections and got to Hawaii in one piece. There, I attended the wedding of two dear college friends, slept little, and had an altogether splendid time!

Meanwhile, Carla stuck around in Bangkok for a few more days and then made her flight to California. I joined her here in the Bay Area on Saturday and have been really enjoying being home! From here, Carla will go to Barcelona for the summer to lead high school kids in a summer program, and I will go back to El Paso to work for the family business for a little while. After that? Who knows! You'll have to ask us when the time comes...

I will close (my portion of) this (episode of the) blog with a short list of things I REALLY, REALLY appreciate about being in the United States.

-Being able to take a shower without worrying about keeping my mouth closed to avoid ingesting unsafe water
-Being able to drink from the tap (and water fountains!!)
-Not being quite obviously foreign and therefore targetable for scams, tuk-tuk hassles, etc.
-FIXED PRICES. No more haggling!
-Automatic flush toilets. NOT!!!! I hate those and was really sorry the first time one flushed under me.
-Normal hair. For some reason, my hair turns into a big frizzy mess on foreign soil. It got completely back to normal after just one wash!

I'm sure there are many more things, but I guess I've already started to take them for granted!

So long, dear readers, and thanks for joining us on our journey!

Carpe Diem (Forever)

Ok guys, I know this might seem crazy, but we have a confession to make. While traveling through the Islands of Southern Thailand, we just had such an amazing time that we needed to do something to commemorate the experience. One night, we were drinking jungle-juice out of small beach toys (aka “buckets”) and as we were walking down the street, someone said, “Hey, where are you from?” when we answered, “The United States”, he followed with “Want to get a tattoo?” How could we say no? So, to consecrate the memory of our life-altering experience laying on the beach, getting wasted, and partying until 6am, we got matching tattoos. Enormous ones. On our backs. In a language neither of us speaks or reads. Testifying to our love of life and fierce commitment to living each moment to the drunkes…I mean, fullest.

Oh wait, that wasn’t us. It was EVERYONE ELSE.

Seriously. In just about every town we’ve been to in Thailand, but especially in the south near the “party towns” on many of these islands/beaches, there are probably more tattoo parlors than restaurants. There are books upon books of designs and photos of the artists’ previous work covering the walls. The artists themselves are also walking advertisements for the possibilities as many are covered nearly head to toe with body art. What’s more, I don’t know how many confounding factors were at play here, but it just seemed to me that there was a TON of body art (tattoos) on the other travelers (mostly non-American) in all these places. What’s the story here? Do the type of people who come to Thailand just have more tattoos? Is body art that much more popular outside the US?

I don’t know the answer to those questions but let me tell you what I do know. A whole slew of those tattoos were acquired right here in Thailand. Most likely while the recipient was drunk with his/her friends providing moral support and/or criticism from the sidelines. The tattoo shops stayed open late. And by late I mean ALL NIGHT. I can’t tell you how many intoxicated people we saw stumbling into tattoo parlors about to turn their bad decisions into permanent ones. First of all, who wants to get tatted up at 4am by the guy who’s been working for 8 hours straight? Second of all, it should be illegal for these places to stay open past midnight when people have made their way through their second or third bucket. That or they should have a mandatory breathalyzer test as you walk in the door. Or maybe a 24 hour waiting period, like when you try to buy a gun in the US.

In any case, I’ll report more seriously now that neither one of us was tempted into any decisions we’ll regret later. Moms and dads, remember this next time you feel like questioning our judgment.

Tales from the Trail

As Audra described in her post, the guys we were hiking with for the first half of the trip pretty much blew us off every day to compete with each other over who could get down the trail first. As a result, Audra and I spent a good amount of time on our own at the back of the pack, chatting, listening to music, singing, or just hiking in silence together. Though I can’t remember exactly how it all started, at some point we started composing little ditties together—parodies of other songs, mostly, that had to do with our experiences on the trail. What follows are the lyrics of our two most complete songs. If you don’t know the song they go with, you should definitely look that up while you read. Enjoy J

Theme 1: Blister care and prevention. A major issue when you’re walking for 20 days straight. This song explores the challenge of catching the blister before it’s too late and not being too proud to admit there’s a problem.

“That Rubbin’ Feeling” (to the tune of “That Lovin’ Feeling”)

You never plan ahead anymore when you lace your shoes

Packed no blister pads like the guidebook told you to

You’re trying hard to conceal it (baby)

But baby, baby you feel it!

You’ve got that rubbin’ feeling

Whoa that rubbin’ feeling

You’ve got that rubbin’ feeling

Put some moleskin on

Before it’s too far gone oh oh whoa

Baby baby you’ve walked ten miles in those shoes

Feel that, blister, growing, you don’t want it to!

You have some boots, some boots, some boots that don’t rub everyday

So don’t, don’t, don’t let your pride get in the way

I’m singin’ baby, baby, baby, baby

Please, I’m beggin’ you please, please please

You need to stop, she needs to stop, so please just stop, sit down and stop

Take off that boot, take it all off! Take off that boot, ohhh!

You’ve got that rubbin’ feeling

Whoa that rubbin’ feeling

You’ve got that rubbin’ feeling

Put some moleskin on

Before it’s too far gone

And you can’t go on oh oh whoa

Theme 2: Relieving yourself in the woods. Enough said?

“Don’t Turn Around” (to the tune of Ace of Base’s “Don’t Turn Around”)

[Don’t tell me that you have to pee]

Hiking on the trail

Been drinking all day

And when you gotta go, darling

There’s only so long you can delay

I wanna be strong, I wanna stay dry

But something is trickling down my thigh

[Be proud of yourself, you’ve hydrated well, it’ll be clear and copious]

Don’t turn around! ‘Cause you’re gonna see my butt shakin’

Don’t turn around! I don’t want you seeing my thighs

Just walk away! You can’t believe how much I’ve been peein’

But I gotta go—I don’t want you to know

Don’t want you to know

I’ve had this pack around me

Squeezing me tight [squeezing me tight]

I see my hiking buddies

Enjoying the sights [enjoying the sights]

I need a pit stop, I’m poppin’ a squat

I’m scopin ‘ a place to make the drop

[It’s inevitable, their backs are all turned, so go on and go]

Don’t turn around! ‘Cause you’re gonna see my trowel rakin’

Don’t turn around! Diggin’ six inches takes time

Just walk away! Not much place to hide past the tree line

Make do with a rock

And assume a full squat!

I wish I could squeeze and wait for a toilet

Oh what I would give for a full throne

Walkin’ up the hill she feels the urge comin’ on

People on the trail, they don’t know what’s goin’ on

They stop and turn around

She’s gone…

Don’t turn around! ‘Cause you’re gonna see my but shakin’

Don’t turn around! I don’t want you seeing my thighs

Just walk away! You can’t believe how much I’ve been peein’

But I gotta go—baby don’t turn around!

Just walk away

You can’t believe how much I’ve been peein’

But I gotta go—don’t turn around!

The Art of the Squat Toilet

On the plane from Istanbul to Bangkok, I saw a sign in the airplane bathroom that I thought was hilarious. It shows an illustration of how one is supposed to sit on the airplane toilet, with feet on the ground, and NOT by squatting on top of the seat (see picture below). As a westerner, this tickled me because it seemed so very obvious how a “throne” toilet should be utilized. It wasn’t until a week or two down the trail in Nepal that I began to understand why there might be confusion: EVERY SINGLE toilet we encountered along the trail and many of the ones in the larger cities were squat toilets. For those who aren’t familiar, a squat toilet is basically a hole or porcelain receptacle at floor level with places for your feet on either side. You squat down, do your business over the hole and flush by pouring a bucket of water down afterwards.

Now, despite my previous third-world travel experiences, I have spent very little time with squat toilets, if any. I guess most of the toilets in Latin America, even in poorer countries, are still Western-style thrones. In one of our first few days in Nepal, Audra came back from the bathroom and proclaimed, “Man, there’s nothing like a good squat toilet.” I found this HILARIOUS. Analogous to the idea of there being nothing like a good bout of diarrhea just to clear out the system. But by the end of our time there, I was singing a slightly different tune.

First of all, we encountered just about every possible inception of the squat toilet imaginable on the trail between Shivalaya, Base Camp, and Lukla. Seriously, I wish in retrospect I had taken pictures in order to document the creativity and variety. These included:

· “Standard” squat toilet bowls, made of porcelain, with foot grips on either side and a bucket and running water with which to “flush”

· More rustic wooden versions consisting of a planked wood floor, with a hole cut out of the middle, with or without wooden foot grips. These usually didn’t involve running water but the good old port-a-potty design (poop on a pile). Some variations included piles of dried leaves inside the room with which you could cover your business and speed along the composting process.

· A stone version, which was essentially a large slab of rock (marble, perhaps? Ah, maybe not) with the same rectangular hole cut into the middle. Another stone version included an inclined “slide zone” (for your number two needs) that could then be flushed down with water.

· An even more rustic concept which, instead of featuring planked wood, was constructed of (worn down) saplings lain across as floorboards with one or two missing from the middle to provide the necessary space for squatting. This one was particularly precarious, as not only could my foot have fit through the squat hole, but could have slipped between any of the tree trunks and made its way down to the odorous netherworld below.

· And, the most rustic version of all: Nothing at all other than something to give you a little shade and perhaps a sliver of privacy. Although one time, Audra and I were directed to the “toilet” which was actually just an open field, by this young girl (probably 10 years old) who proceeded to sit there and watch while we squatted and took care of business. Luckily we were wearing our hiking skirts so it wasn’t such a peep show.

At first I found the squat toilet concept awkward and primitive…particularly the non-flush versions had a tendency toward pretty strong smells. But after I got into the groove, I really started to appreciate what Audra was getting at. For me, the key to comfortably using a squat toilet was the concept of the FULL SQUAT. This is not a “dirty bar bathroom hover” situation in which you’re basically doing a wall-sit while relieving yourself, but an actual bent knees, weight on your heels, bottom at ground level, full squat. This posture is WAY more comfortable than the “hover” and you can stay there for as long as you need (variable factor in stomach bug territory) without your quads starting to burn and quiver. The other realization I had was that in any rural or more germy situation, a squat toilet is actually a ton cleaner than a poorly-maintained throne, because there’s actually no contact between you and the toilet other than with your shoe-covered feet. You walk away from that thing without having to touch, wipe, or sit on a seat or pull a handle to flush. I would say American bars should consider a change-over but the idea of drunk women squatting in stiletto heels is just asking for trouble.

The real turning point came on my last day on the trail, heading from Namche to Lukla, where I stopped for a bathroom break at a rest house. There were two toilet options: the throne and the squat. Can you guess which one I chose? That’s right. I passed up the porcelain chair and opted instead for the hands-free sit on my haunches approach. I walked out thinking that Audra had been right after all. In places where you have to choose between a sporadically maintained squat toilet and a sporadically maintained throne, there is NOTHING like a good squat toilet.

Time Warp: Nepal

Ok yet again I’m here to catch you up on things that I meant to write about earlier but never got around to and blah blah blah…are you sensing a pattern here?

Cue squiggly screen shot and dreamy flashback music.

I wanted to expand a little on some details and stories from our time on the trail in Nepal. The 3 weeks we spent trekking in the Khumbu region were by far the highlight of this trip for both of us. The scenery was spectacular, the people were welcoming, and the challenge was tangible and drove us to action each day. In my last update, I talked about the physical and mental challenge we experienced during the long days from Shivalaya to Namche Bazaar. After Namche, things really shifted because the limiting factor each day had more to do with how high we could climb (and sleep) rather than how many hours of daylight we had to walk. Instead of aching legs, it was burning lungs that caused us to pull over for rest. In the end, we both navigated the altitude safely, and it was fascinating to watch/feel as our bodies adjusted to the climate, feeling stronger and less winded each day. Our “training trip” really did pay off when, towards the end of the trip, we barely noticed the weight on our backs (which ended up being in the vicinity of 10kg or 22lbs). Ultimately, we accomplished exactly what we came to do, and then some. We left Nepal with a great sense of accomplishment, success, and confident that our backsides are going to look better than ever once we get them back to a pair of jeans.

There are a few specific themes I still wanted to write about from our time in Nepal, so please bear with me as I take you back in time for the next few posts!

Adventures in Krabi

Sooo Krabi. I loved Krabi. It was a pretty far cry from Ko Phangan in terms of geography (more interesting), vibe (more relaxed), people (older, calmer, less inclined to get hammered all the time), and activities (way more options). The first day there, we rented kayaks and rowed along the coast, which has a lot of cliffs jutting out of the ocean. We went over several areas that were shallow and clear enough to see the bottom, which made me want to snorkel. So the next day, I went for a long snorkeling session. It was a great swim/workout, but to be honest the wildlife wasn’t that spectacular. I guess it wasn’t the best area, plus the water was choppy.



That afternoon, we spent some time at the hotel pool after lunch. It was nothing fancy—the water wasn’t particularly clear and the plastic lining was coming off the bottom—but it was a great way to cool down and stay in the shade in the afternoon. While we were there, this Irish guy who lived on the island (who was most remarkable, to me, for the central role that marijuana clearly played in his life) told us about a view point and laguna nearby. We set off to hike to these points, but ran into a Canadian girl we had met, who was covered in red mud and said that she’d been unable to get to the laguna because the going was too rough. That was enough to convince Carla to stick with her original plan of reading and writing all afternoon, and enough to convince me that this journey was not to be missed.

I started up the path to the viewpoint, and it was definitely more interesting than your average trail—it was a steep climb up a slippery slope, with ropes strung here and there to help on the ascent. I was wearing my Vibrams, which are a great shoe for scrambling, and I felt pretty confident climbing, just as long as I could use both hands and feet.

At the top I spoke to some other guys who had been to the laguna and they agreed it was technically challenging. It was late enough that I doubted more people would be coming, and I decided that I shouldn’t go alone (is anyone proud of me for such uncharacteristic prudence?) so I was on the way back down when I ran into a group of Americans coming up. I asked if they were going to the laguna and they said yes, so I joined them.

We got to the top and began the descent, and soon we got to a place where there was a 20-foot drop, with a rope hanging over the edge. This guy Mike went first—lord knows how—and then helped me to get my feet into progressively lower loops on this slimy rope until I was close enough to the ground to jump, with his guidance. He helped the rest of the group down the same way. In all there were three drop-offs like that, where you had to lower yourself on ropes. After the fact, and based on the fact that nobody fell or was injured, I’d have to say that it wasn’t too hard… but in the moment it was SUCH a thrill.

At the bottom, we got our reward: a still, clear lagoon surrounded on all sides by jutting cliffs. I floated in the middle and looking up, all I could see was an eye of blue sky rimmed with foliage, with birds flying to and fro across it. The air was absolutely still.



Coming back up the trail was another adventure, since you couldn’t very well shimmy up a rope, so we had to find places to free-climb up. This is not something I normally do without trepidation, but they guys spotted me and it ended up being easy enough. I was pretty impressed by the people I was with (and those who make this trip in general). I am a decently athletic person, but I would have never attempted it without the help of my new friends.

Then we went to the lookout point (again, for me) and watched the sunset—AMAZING!! And the whole adventure was capped off with me going down the first path alone in the dark. I felt like Jane of the jungle, grabbing all these ropes and roots to guide me along a dimly lit mud path.



That day was also Carla’s birthday! So we had a nice dinner of grilled fish and sides (I had red snapper, Carla had shark) and then went dancing at the one bar that had a club-like scene. Right when we got there, this guy approached Carla and we ended up sitting with him and his buddy. They were Canadian and they were (unsurprisingly) very nice. A little boring, but nice for sure. They wouldn’t dance with us, and of course we were there to dance, so… we hit the dance floor. Alone. And went crazy!

I don’t think there are many people in my life who will dance with me when the floor is otherwise empty, but I’ve known since this one Harvey Mudd party my senior year that Carla is one who can get a party started (or just dance alone with me until we’re tired and leave the party to continue to be not-started). So we were shaking our thing, sweat pouring down our faces, to such an extent that the bartender gave us a free bucket (remember, a small plastic beach pail containing a 5th of cheap alcohol, a soda, and a red bull on ice). Man, the contents of buckets is gross! I love the taste of alcohol, from two buck chuck to PBR, but I could NOT take down one of these buckets! It tasted vaguely like you went to the soda fountain and mixed all the options into a paper cup, then let all the ice melt and the soda has gone flat. With rotgut alcohol. I don’t even know if I can say I’ve outgrown such a thing—I might have never been able to stomach it. But I didn’t come to Thailand in college, so it’s hard to say.

So we danced and we danced HARD. It was a lot of fun, and eventually other people danced too. We left at 2:30 and the party was still going.

Wow this post got huge. To sum up the next few days: we went with the two nice Canadians the next day, took a ferry, rented motorbikes, and rode behind them to a temple above 1200 steps. We got really sweaty. Like, REALLY sweaty. When I wiped my face, it didn’t remove the sweat, it just moved it around. We went to a market and had CHEAP pad thai and iced coffees (about $1 for both) and I found out that I’m one of very few white people who like Durian fruit. We went back and had an early night (I basically went face down on the bed and missed dinner). The next day I went scuba diving and Carla went canoeing through mangrove forests with a Canadian tour group. The next day we decided at the last minute to go to Ko Phi Phi, which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. So around noon we got on a water taxi that took us to a pier, where a van took us to another pier, then a big boat took us to Ko Phi Phi.

Thailand II

Right now we are at a place called Railay Beach, which is near Krabi town on the SW coast of Thailand. And it is breathtaking. One of the most beautiful places I have ever been. It is a small peninsula covered in sharp cliffs and tropical vegetation, so you have the ocean, the greenery, and the topography all battling for attention. A lot of people come here to climb, and we might do some climbing. There is also snorkeling and diving, and yesterday we took a kayak around part of the coast.
Our hotel is pretty fancy by our standards—flush toilet (though it doesn’t always flush) and fan (though the fan is technically not working) plus the room provided towels, TP, AND shampoo and soap! Right? It is up a big staircase, so from where I am on the terrace it looks out on a great view of the ocean. There is also a pool. Our room is about $15 a night.

Getting here was interesting—we went on an overnight boat in which most of the space was taken up by thin mattresses placed side by side on the floor. Each one was maybe the width of a full-size bed and fit two. We kept our backpacks at the feet of the beds and all the tourists piled in there together and the lights went out as soon as the boat left, and really pretty much everyone slept (based on the general lack of noise). It was a great concept! Unfortunately, the boat ride ended at 4 am and we had to wait in a parking lot for an open-back truck to take us to a waiting station, where it took some two hours for the next truck to be ready to take us to a bus, where we sat unmoving for an hour before making the journey to Krabi for a taxi to the port and a long-tail boat to the beach. But it was worth it! So far this is my favorite place in Thailand. The island we were at before had great beaches and everything, but there’s just something about the cliffs that really takes this area to the next level.

The last place we were, Koh Phangan, is famous for the Full Moon Party. We arrived two days before it, and found that there were parties every night already. The first night we went to this pool party and I felt like I was the oldest person there—fine in itself, but the way everyone else was behaving was way too reminiscent of the awkwardness of the late teenage/early college years.

In general, the scene made me just a little uncomfortable. It reminded me of Spring Break in Rosarito, Mexico… where privileged white people descended en masse on this Mexican town, which had completely re-configured itself to receive them, feed them, inebriate them, and then clean up after them. I went to the market there and some of the vendors were floored that I spoke Spanish. They had learned to even accommodate their rich visitors linguistically, rather than the other way around.
Well, I don’t speak a word of Thai so I’m guilty on that front and many others. In Haad Rin (the beach town where the party happens), the shops are all made up of:

1. Restaurants that serve Western food at steep prices and play a continuous stream of American movies on big screens.
2. Shops selling neon colored shirts and shorts, hats, flip flops and an endless supply of summer dresses.
3. Massage parlors.
4. Tattoo parlors. Apparently they do NOT stop applying tattoos after a certain time of night, when alcohol can turn bad decisions into irreversible ones.
5. Motorbike rental facilities
6. Medical clinics. There were at least 4 on this island, a testament to how alcohol and motorbikes don’t mix.
7. Alcohol vendors. There are dozens and dozens of stands that are virtually identical except for the writing on the front, in which each vendor tries to out-do the other with respect to shock value and/or appeals to certain demographics. An example of the former would be “Free Fuck Bucket” to top “Me love you long time” or of the latter would be a surplus of, say, British flags.

So this town was basically a bunch of tanned/sunburned white 20 year olds killing time between parties. This was a difficult scene for me. Also, people were startlingly unfriendly! They would pass us without making eye contact, and sometimes even when I said hello they didn’t respond. One day we were trying to go to another beach and were unsuccessful hitching with SUVs full of tourists—though TWICE one pulled over and then pulled away before we could get in. It was unbelievable. I got so frustrated that I split with Carla and started running down the road, up and down steep hills. I eventually ran out of steam and it started to rain as I walked back, and vehicle after vehicle passed me without asking if I would like a ride.

Still, I had a blast at the Full Moon Party itself. A lot of people came in just for the party and they tended to be older and less single minded. Then there was a ton of loud music and people dancing. But the best part of the night was that Carla and I used glow-in-the-dark body paint on each other. We spent probably 2 or more hours applying it. We were both in sports bras and bikini bottoms, and I painted her exposed skin with vines and flowers. She painted my face with an incredibly detailed Dia de los Muertos-style skull and then painted an orange skeleton onto my body. It was definitely the winner, though we both got lots of attention. I am a definite convert to the idea of body paint as a party accessory!

We didn’t really stay out that late. We weren’t drinking—all together I think the two of us had maybe 3 beers total on the island, both because it was expensive and because we were enjoying the fruit shakes and Thai iced teas so much that alcohol seemed extraneous—so after a certain point it was just clear how drunk everyone else was and it was kind of a turnoff. Someone puked on my shoe. That’s a first. We saw a couple fighting and stood watching them for a few minutes in confusion, because it looked like the fight was based on her trying to remove his shorts and him not wanting her to. We started being approached not by people who just wanted to ooh and aah over our get-ups, but who wanted to drape their sandy, sweaty arms over us and slurringly convince us to hook up with their buddy. Another funny thing was guys who tried to impress us by name-dropping skeletal elements. “Oh wow. Clavicle, radius, ulna, carpals—you did a great job!”

We were in bed by 2:30 after scrubbing off whatever paint didn’t fall off from the sweat of dancing. I woke up at 7 and went back to the main beach, and the party was still going on! Some Americans I had talked to the night before were sitting on the beach, and I found out that they had pulled an all-nighter by necessity; they didn’t have accommodation. They had come in the day before and were just waiting on the day’s first ferry to leave. (My reaction: next time I’m doing it that way! Carla’s reaction: that sounds like torture).

I had spent the 2.5 days leading up to the party mostly feeling uncomfortable. I felt uncomfortable with the scene of privilege-meets-natural-beauty-and-cheapens-it, and I think I was also feeling some serious Nepal withdrawal. As many of you know, I’m not great at sitting still. So the Nepal lifestyle (get up and hike!) suited me better than the Thai tourist one (sit on the beach and read). Plus I missed our friends from Nepal, the doctors. We had spent a lot of time with them and it was hard not having them around all of a sudden. But the day after the party, I ended up sleeping in a hammock and reading for a lot of the day and it felt pretty good!

We finally left our bungalow in the late afternoon, and went to Haad Rin beach. There, Carla saw three guys messing around with a volleyball and said, “looks like the need a fourth to play!” She jogged towards them and called out “It looks like you guys need a fourth!” And they ignored her. For a second I was like, this is unbelievable—more rude people! But then she caught their attention and one of them gestured to her that they were deaf. So the four of them went to the nets and had an awesome game of 2 on 2 (all four were great players) while I kept score. And it was just so much fun!! The guys could all mouth words, though I didn’t hear any of them speak at all. They’d ask me what the score was and I’d speak it while holding up fingers to show. Carla and I cheered and everything as usual, but ours were the only voices. After the game, we sat and chatted with them for a while, using gestures, lip-reading, and a single piece of paper and pen. They all seemed like really great guys and we got their email address and might see them here in Krabi.

We had paid for two more nights but the next day we decided to move on that night. I wanted to get motorbikes to explore more of the island but Carla was turned off by all the tourists with bandaged limbs from where they had fallen. Just when we were debating what to do, we saw three French guys Carla had met earlier renting bikes, and we ended up riding on the backs of their bikes over the island to a much quieter beach. I really enjoyed the ride! Man, there’s something about flying over terrain with the wind in my face that really gets me, whether it’s on a bicycle or a motorbike. We were out there till evening, and then we had to really scramble to get all our stuff packed and get to the boat, but it was a really nice day and a great way to end our stay there.

This post is in the wrong order but it brings us up to speed! The plan for today is to join an afternoon-evening tour for snorkeling, seafood, sunset and swimming with some phospholuminescent shrimp. P.s. we’re just a ferry ride away from the place where the movie The Beach was filmed, and we’re going to go check that out tomorrow or the next day.

I fly out in 8 days and I’m really excited about that. I don’t know if it’s because the end is near or just because it’s been so long, but I’m running out of steam for traveling. Which I’m kind of grateful for—we’ve talked to some people who are going home and sound really depressed about it, which makes me kind of sad. I’m glad that I have so many wonderful people and things to go home to!

Thailand I

I had heard a lot of not-nice things about Bangkok... from the book Earth Odyssee, which described it as one of the most polluted cities on earth, to a friend from the Nepal portion who called it "soul sucking." But to be honest, Bangkok was much cleaner, quieter, politer, and MUCH more Western than Kathmandu. All of a sudden we had a room with A/C, western flush toilet, TP provided, a private (hot) shower, towels on the beds... we were in the lap of luxury. Meanwhile, we were across the street from a mall with A/C (see a theme) and all sorts of restaurants, including such things as Dairy Queen. We did some touristing and saw amazing temples and things, and people were really polite. The only weird thing had to do with tuk-tuks, but that'll have to be a separate story. Oh, and NOBODY HONKS. Which was an incredible difference from not only Kathmandu, but also most urban centers in developing countries where I've been.

So we ended up spending an extra day in Bangkok, which meant two nights and three days. We ate a lot of street food. Then we took a night bus to the south in an effort to reach the island of Koh Phangan, where there is a really famous Full Moon Party every month. When we found out that the party would work well with our proposed itinerary, we went for it.

For the overnight bus, we didn't book in advance so we ended up in third class. I might have chosen third class anyway, but Carla was having some weird skin issues (this seems to be a pattern in tropical areas!) and wanted to be able to lay down and put up her foot, which was unreasonably swollen from a mosquito bite. It really turned out ok-- there was no air conditioning but the windows opened really far, and I had brought my ground pad (second time using it in 3 months, yay!) so we put that down on the floor and one of us could sleep with our head under one bench seat and feet under the other while the other of us stretched out across the bench (which was a 2-seater; not very long). We arrived in the morning and basically got straight on a tourist bus, then a ferry, then a taxi, and finally arrived at our beach destination.

Everest Recap

Before too much time gets between me and this part of the journey, let me recap the second part of our Everest journey.

We spent a rest day in Namche so we were there for two nights. While there, we met a group of doctors on a continuing education trip, and we just somehow ended up integrating ourselves to the level that we took off from there with them. On this part of the trip we had less weight (we left a bunch of extraneous stuff at a lodge between Namche and Lukla), there was less time spent hiking (since altitude changes dictated a slower pace) and overall we just had a LOT more free time. So it was great to be traveling with a group, since we benefited both from their wacky and cool personalities in the evenings for card games and social games, and we got to sit in on their courses, which ranged from insect transmitted diseases to how to avoid getting struck by lightning in the outdoors. I picked up quite a few new bits of knowledge.

The trip to Everest Base Camp was inspired by my friend Joe's status as an employee there, so I was REALLY excited the day of our summit to the camp... and instead I ended up crossing paths with him along the trail. Which was cool because I got to catch up with him and also meet his girlfriend, whom I'd heard plenty about but never met, but it kind of took the wind out of my sails for the trip to camp. Still, base camp ended up being great! Carla and I left the med group to go there, and we ended up chatting first with an American solo climber, and then we chatted up a group of Spanish climbers and got invited into their tent for a hot drink and a chat. This group was led by a badass woman who had been the first woman to climb all 14 peaks over 8000 meters tall, and was now leading the team to do all 14 without oxygen. So far the had accomplished all but Everest. I have the website info for them so we'll check it out-- and we might even be on Spanish TV! (their videographer took video of our conversation).

Thank goodness we are both Spanish speakers! Though to be fair probably our being female had a lot to do with having gotten the opportunity... base camp has some pretty skewed male/female ratios and we got a ton of attention just walking around the camp in our hiking skirts.

BTW, general info about base camp: it's a little village of tents, with no permanent structures. There are sleeping tents, which are short and igloo shaped, and cooking tents, communal tents, storage tents, and even toilet tents. The Spanish crew showed us their provision tent, which was chock full of all the Western junk food you could ask for, from cookies to hot chocolate to chips and candy. Though it seemed like paradise to our variety-starved palates, I'm sure they get pretty sick of it.

Climbers spend most of their 1-2 months at base camp. They will go higher for short periods to acclimatize at Camp 1 or Camp 2. They go up to Camp 3 briefly, and beyond that is the "Death Zone" where acclimatization is physiologically impossible, and basically you only go there for as long as you have to to summit and get the hell out. It takes I think 5 days to summit Everest from Base Camp, and people just wait for the weather to clear to go for it. Sometimes there is not a single window in the entire season and it just sucks to be you if you hung out for two months and paid tens of thousands of dollars for permits, guides, supplies, and support staff.

It's a crazy culture and I can't imagine wanting to climb those peaks, but some people live for it. In Namche we saw a couple of movies/documentaries about it and I would recommend you check it out if you're interested. One was Into Thin Air and the other was some National Geographic flick. People are just NOT designed to be up there (though Sherpas are genetically predisposed to be able to withstand much higher altitudes than we are). And it is no joke. We saw plenty of people not take it seriously, and we also saw some life-threatening altitude sickness. We personally met three people who got helicoptered out for medical treatment. One was in our med group, and one was a guy I hiked with for a day who had done the same treks as me and Carla, only faster. It happened all the time, and apparently 1-2 people a day DIE up there. It's crazy because it feels like you're just living life normally (albeit a little breathless) but it can creep up and kill you. We followed the rules and outside of a few headaches, we made it through with no trouble. We took our pulse throughout and after descending, and while we were in the 120s resting at altitude, I had a resting pulse rate of near 50 back in Kathmandu!

2nd perspective: Shivalaya to Namche

I actually haven’t read Carla’s last post as I write this, so forgive any redundancy. We’re in Bangkok and having to pay for internet, so I’m writing this offline and will upload it.

I can’t believe that it’s been nearly a month since we left Turkey for Nepal! Oh man, Turkey feels like a long time ago. So much happened in the last month, and each day stretched out so long (in a good way—we just had so much time to think with all the hiking and resting).

The first part of the journey, Shivalaya to Namche, was much harder than anything that followed (for the most part—stay tuned for the last few days). Each day we got up early, had breakfast, packed up and hiked till lunchtime, then ate, then hiked till somewhere between 4 and 6. Then we had dinner, and then usually we went to bed by 9 to get up and do it all again. The first day we hiked with the five guys we had joined up with, and on subsequent days it was either just the two of us or us two and this Israeli guy.

Carla just told me that she didn’t mention these guys in her post, so allow me to recap: on the bus to Shivalaya, we met a group of five guys who were planning largely the same treks. I will refer to them by their nationalities: English, Canadian, American, Belgian, and Israeli. We spent a 12 hour bus ride with them and we were all getting along really well! English was particularly funny—he did these great impressions of the kid who was running the show on the bus (“Hello ladies. Don’t know if you noticed, but I’m the bus conductor. If you want to chat about it, you know where to find me.”)

So yeah, we all hiked together the first day and we were all excited about our great group. Then as the days wore on, it seemed like the guys became increasingly involved in a 5-way bromance that required them to go ever faster, talk ever more about how badass they were, and increasingly ignore us girls. So by the end of day 5, when the guys were talking about doing a super long day 6 to get to Namche, we told them that we wanted to take it slow and would be leaving later and going the distance in two days. Carla and I had a great, peaceful last two days during which we went at our own pace.

Again I will backtrack a little to tell about our surroundings. From the time we left Kathmandu basically until we hit the trail from Lukla, we were in the land of the squat toilet. There is a wide range of squat toilets. Some have porcelain foot platforms in a cement floor. Others are little wooden sheds that make use of a hillside, with a couple of widely spaced boards suspended over a 6-foot drop, wherein you stand on the boards and let your business go down the space in between. For the most part, the squat toilets were preferable to the dirty, seatless, peed-upon thrones that we found a little later on the trail. It’s way easier to do the full squat down on your haunches than to try to hover-poo over something that’s already a foot tall.

Along the way, we saw virtually no tourists. We did see plenty of Nepalis, and we would always exchange a Namaste and often a little clasped-hand bow. We saw porters carrying unbelievable loads in wicker baskets suspended from the crowns of their heads, and often wearing sandals over the rugged rock paths.

We stayed in guest houses that were basic. The rooms were usually doubles, and Carla and I would get our own room. The bathroom was always elsewhere—sometimes indoors, sometimes outdoors—and showers ranged from a running, hot (or cold, depending) shower to a bucket shower with hot water. Showers cost extra, anywhere from $1.50 to over $4. Meanwhile, the rooms were anywhere from free (cause you’re buying dinner) to $0.75 a person. During the first week, Carla and I probably averaged about $10-15 a day on food, lodging, outlet charging, and showers. Together, not each.

It was a really spectacular taste of rural Nepali life, which largely ended when we hit the point where the trail joins up with the trail from Lukla (to which you can fly from Kathmandu). Suddenly white people were all around, squat toilets were replaced by (gross, seatless) thrones, and prices were double. Nepalis would sometimes answer your Namaste but rarely initiate it and never bow. So in general, the latter part of the journey was a diluted version of the first.

One more funny story from the first week: at one of the lodges, we found out that the owner had summited Everest twice AND met the Dalai Lama (Me: “You’ve met the Dalai Lama?” Him: “Yeah. Good guy.”) So we asked if we could take a photo with him, and he sat between us on the couch for it. With his hand on my butt. When he got up, I told Carla, “he patted my butt!” and she replied, “MINE TOO!” So basically, this guy took the opportunity to cop a double feel with some young ladies. Oh well, I guess I can’t begrudge him that. I wonder if we look surprised in the picture…

Everest or Bust

This update comes to you one week into our three-week trekking adventure in Nepal. As Audra described, we flew into Kathmandu and spent two busy days prepping for three weeks on the trail away from most modern conveniences. This trip would mark the longest consecutive amount of time either of us had spent backpacking/camping. Feeling pretty well prepared and having left a bag of stuff at our hotel in Kathmandu (who knew we had so much extra?) we set off on the dusty, bumpy, terrifying (think climbing next to sheer drop-offs while passing trucks around blind corners at full speed), exhilarating 12-hour bus ride to Shivalaya, from where we would begin a 6-day walk to Lukla before heading to Everest Base camp.

I don't think either of us realized exactly what we were in for. The hiking we did in the first 6 days of this trip has been by far the most strenuous physical challenge I've ever undertaken day in and day out. These 6 days were supposed to be a sort of "training and acclimatization" pre-trip, which I think we assumed would mean "gradual warm-up" but turned out to be more like, "if you can do this, the rest will be a piece of cake". Serves me right for not checking out the elevation gains and trail details in advance.

In short, those first 6 days were grueling. Both physically and mentally. We walked an average of between 7 and 10 hours each day, starting early and often arriving at our destination as it was getting dark. During that time, we climbed and descended between 700 and 1200 meters (not feet!) each day. I don't know if I've ever climbed 3000 feet in a day prior to this trip, and we did it at least three times, often on back to back days. For a point of reference (for those who live in the Bay Area), Mt. Diablo is 1,178 meters high.

Day 3 was the most challenging. After it was over, Audra and I marched ourselves down to the freezing cold mountain stream to soak our legs up to the hips, chanting songs back and forth to distract us from the pain of freezing limbs. That night, I hit a personal emotional low. Feeling overwhelmed by what was ahead of us and a strong pang of homesickness, I took control of the situation by rifling through my pack and separating anything that could be considered a "nice to have" from the "must haves". Goodbye book (that I was 3/4 of the way through!), goodbye hair conditioner! goodbye lotion! goodbye Afterbite (no mosquitoes this high anyways), goodbye extra black tank top! goodbye forever and good riddance. Though Audge and I pride ourselves on light packing, the term "light" takes on new weight (so to speak) when you have to carry all your stuff (or "S" as we call it) on your back up and down a few mountains.

Things improved from that point on. We've taken precautions to be very careful and kind with our bodies, as they are our only mode of transportation at this point. It's interesting how you pay attention to little aches and pains differently when you know you're 2 days' walk from the nearest medical care. We made it to the first major landmark in our journey, Namche Bazaar, the day before yesterday and were able to take a day to rest and acclimatize (we're at 3,400 meters here) before moving on. The altitude has been an interesting factor as well...both of us felt pretty strange (light headed, short of breath) going over a pass at about 3700 meters earlier on the trip, and Namche is just a bit below that. I developed a pretty uncomfortable headache our first night here (despite massive hydration) and started taking Diamox (acclimatization meds) on a preventative basis that evening. Interesting, but normal, side-effects include tingly fingers and lips. But the headache's gone! Pick your poison :)

Today we're hitting the trail again for a longer stint, about 2 weeks in total. The plan is to head up toward Everest Base Camp, following a group of doctors taking a wilderness medicine course (moms, dads, and relatives, that should make you feel good). After base camp, we'll split off to see the view from Kala Pattar before heading over the Cho La pass towards Gokyo and coming back down to Namche Bazaar via the Gokyo route. This is all assuming good acclimatization and healthy joints. Expect to hear from us on or around the 15th of May!

If you're curious where we're headed, you can see a simple map here: http://vic.com/nepal/map1.html

Check out the Lonely Planet website if you want more details. See you on the other side!

Traffic Laws? What Traffic Laws?

We have spent the last 30-ish hours in Kathmandu... this city is nuts!! Carla guessed that the right of way belongs to whoever is moving faster. The streets are absolutely teeming with people, and there are a million shops for all kinds of outdoor gear. Even though it's definitely cheaper to stay and eat and get around here than anywhere else we've been, our fear of being cold, hungry, and unable to find warm things and food have led us to drop a lot of money. Now we're equipped with down jackets and mittens, thick socks, new sunglasses (I of course lost mine in Greece--I basically lose everything when I travel--and Carla's broke), hiking pants for Carla, and a hat for me. We also bought out half the drugstore-- I mad-dogged Carla the whole time for being such a mom, but if I get sick I'll have to really butter her up to fork over the goods.

Tomorrow morning we will leave on a bus for Shivalaya and from there hike to Everest Base Camp. It should take some 17 days to get there, then 5 to get back to Lukla for a flight back to Kathmandu. This will be by far the longest hiking trip of my life, though to be fair we will be sleeping and eating in tea houses, which negates the need for most of the gear that limits the length of backpacking trips.

We will probably not post again till mid-May, but look forward to some epic pictures!

Dubai: Supersize Me!

When we were shopping from flights from Istanbul to Kathmandu, the one that was cheapest by far was on the airline FlyDubai. It had an 18 hour layover in Dubai, so we decided to go for it and I posted on facebook to see if anyone knew anyone there we could crash with. True to form, my good friend Ghyrn, who has connected me with more awesome people than I can count, introduced me by email to his friend Jeremy who lives in Dubai, and we were set!

I was actually pretty excited about Dubai, which is in the United Arab Emirates, since one of the hostel workers in Jordan had showed us a bunch of pictures of the city and its architecture back in March. Sure enough, when we got off the plane the first thing I noticed—other than the blessedly warm weather—was the spire of the world’s tallest building rising in the distance.

We took a cab to Jeremy’s building and called him. He was coming back from Abu Dhabi in an hour and a half, so we left our packs in the lobby and went to the mall adjacent to his building. Biggest mall in the world, turns out! And—where do I begin? Dubai is like Vegas on steroids. More lights. More fancy cars. Taller buildings, bigger malls, more recent technology—you name it! This mall was full of all the usual stores you’d find anywhere, plus an ice skating rink, a completely ENORMOUS fountain covering 2+ stories of walls, extremely fancy restaurants, and familiar not-so-fancy restaurants including Chilis, California Pizza Kitchen, Au Bon Pain… it would have taken all day to see this whole mall. One thing I saw there that I’d never seen before was 3D television. So it felt like this place was stop #1 for technology that hadn’t even made it to America yet, and it was all very mind-blowing.



Not one store was un-Western. Not one ad showed a person who looked un-Western (I mean, there were Asian looking people in the ads but wearing Western clothes, and there was a notable absence of anyone Arabic looking or wearing so much as a hijab. Carla pointed out how alienating it might feel to the local women to feel marginalized in this way in their own homeland.) Also, not one worker we saw looked un-Asian. By which I mean Indian/South Asian or East/Southeast Asian, aka not Middle Eastern (or white).

Honestly we could have been in Houston. The only difference were that some 10% of people were wearing outfits that would have been rare back home—either full black robes with only a slit for the eyes (women) or long gowns and white or checkered head coverings held on with a round rope (men).

After getting lost and finally making it out of the mall, we met Jeremy at his building, which is a combo fancy hotel and apartment building. It. Was. Fancy. His apartment was far nicer than ANY residence I’ve seen inhabited by anyone our age. And I guess it has elements of a hotel, in that it gets cleaned and stocked with mini-shampoos and stuff (Jeremy, it took tremendous restraint not to steal your roommate’s mini-shampoos). There were 2.5 baths to 2 bedrooms, and on either side balconies looked out onto the spectacular night lights of the uber-skyscraper, the mall, and a fountain which is the—wait for it—yep, the biggest in the world, which had incredible water-light-music shows every half hour.



We hung out and watched a few shows and chatted over some wine, then went out to an Asian fusion restaurant where Jeremy treated us to what was BY FAR the nicest meal we’ve had since our travels began. Other than one time when we each got our own kebab sandwich, we always share meals. Which is something I really love about traveling with Carla—it saves money and keeps me from stuffing my face, and food is never wasted; our plates are always scraped clean. But we ate everything we wanted at this place and the food was awesome. Another thing to point out is that you can apparently get absolutely any kind of food in Dubai.

So we had a nice relaxed dinner, the three of us, and Jeremy paid for us so then we took him out for ice cream. On the way back we dawdled, walking slowly and stopping to look at fancy cars. It struck me that the whole evening felt a lot like… a date. But a 2-on-1 date. Regardless, it was a really great evening, and I was left with a great impression of Dubai!


Our 2-on-1 date... Why isn't that a more standard practice? Actually, once I brought a friend along on a first date with someone I met online, and it was really awkward.

Turkey III

We were in Istanbul for a week, and at first that seemed like too much time but it ended up being fine. We did some couchsurfing, which was interesting (and cheap) but also had its downsides. For the uninitiated, Couchsurfing.org is a website where you can have a profile and either stay with strangers (who you can scope out based on what previous surfers have said about them) or host people who are passing through. I used its counterpart, hospitalityclub.com, in Europe in 2006 and always had good experiences, but had never used either one since then. At this point we were ready to lay a little lower and save some money, so we got online and stayed first for two nights with a couple of very nice guys in a very cool apartment that was far from everything, and then for three nights with two very nice guys in a well located but... um, well let’s just say that when you are two 30-ish men living alone, sometimes your space is not up to the standards of women. Neither house had an oven, which was a bummer because we bought supplies for making hallah before figuring it out, and ended up hauling flour around the city and accidentally abandoning it in house #2.

We made the transition to Mehmet’s house on Monday and that basically ended up eating our day. It took a while to get going in the morning, and then we had to take a ferry to the Asian side of the city and a bus to his neighborhood, then wait for him. When we got to the house we did laundry and went to the grocery store, then cooked dinner for the two guys and ourselves. On the stove, naturally, even though I’d shopped/planned for a casserole!

The next day we took a ferry to one of the Prince’s Islands and this was one of the highlights for me. The islands are sort of distant suburbs to the city, and it was full of huge and elaborate, though startlingly run-down, mansions with lots of nice gardens, trees, and open green space. We hiked all over the island and got great views on all sides. We also found some great baklava and ate a lot of it. The funny thing about the day was that we had accidentally left the house almost without cash, so we had to strategize carefully to keep enough for all the transit rides! This involved trading the last of our Euros with a Dutch girl for Lira and begging more than one ferry guard for mercy (once when we accidentally bought the wrong tokens, once when we took the wrong ferry and had to turn around). The day was fun and the island was just so peaceful and serene. There are no cars on the island aside from emergency vehicles and a 3-vehicle funeral procession that we saw next to the (beautiful) cemetery, but all the roads are wide and paved! It seemed like a strange allocation of resources…


The boat ride back to the city took place near sunset...

That night we got back hours later than we had planned. Our host Mehmet had planned this outing to see live Balkan music, and the preview recordings he played for us sounded great! Then the night of the event, he had gone on out early, and his roommate who was supposed to take us got sick so he gave us (really bad, it turns out) directions to the bus stop and then Mehmet took a good half hour to meet us at the Burger King where we were supposed to wait for him. We go to the club at 1 and the band had long since finished. So we danced at the club for a while, but we were tired and it was only a so-so night out. My kind of party night—and this has been true since college and before—starts by 10 and ends by 2, and that’s why I know I was meant to be young in the US and not in Europe!

The following day we had to transition to the other homestay since the guys at the first place both left town. It was raining and we spent most of the afternoon in the modern art museum and then window shopping and reading in cafes in the Taksim area, where there are a lot of Western stores and it looks just like the pedestrian malls of… every other European capital. I was about to say with more kebab shops, but there are a lot of those in Europe too. We got to our new homestay that night, made some conversation, and went to bed early.

Friday we went out and did a few more touristy things, and I was REALLY GLAD that we made it to the Basilica Cistern. I expected an underground water tank, but in fact it was… well, it was an enormous room full of evenly spaced pillars holding up an arched brick ceiling. The floor was covered in clear water (you walk around on platforms) and the columns are all eerily lit with orange lights. I found it spectacularly creepy and ancient feeling! The cistern dates from the 6th century, when it was used to store water for royalty. Given the time of its construction, it really seemed like a marvel! We also went to see Hagia Sophia (cool but not mind-blowing) and the spice market (so many free samples!)



Our last day was dedicated to logistics for our upcoming travel. We planned a Nepal itinerary and sent it to our families, tied up loose ends that would require a computer (aside from this catch up blogging, which I’m doing on the plane and will hopefully get a chance to upload in Kathmandu) and so on. In the afternoon we went out and had a nice lunch, then looked for a place to print some documents including our flight confirmation and the Everest Base Camp chapter from the Lonely Planet Nepal guide we’d purchased online as pdfs.

This episode ended up being hilarious. First we asked around about where to print. A guy in a café gave us directions and then told us to come back afterwards and he’d treat us to a tea. We went on down the road he indicated and asked someone in a photo studio. That guy only spoke basic English, but he came with us and asked in all the shops down the street until we found one that would do it. There, a boy who spoke even LESS English helped us communicate with the other people there who spoke NONE. First they printed it such that the pages were huge (rather than book-style, it was twice the side and each book page had its own sheet). We tried to indicate that we wanted it printed two pages to a side, double sided. Which ended up being hilarious because Carla demonstrated this with one hand in front of her, then the other, then again lower down, in such a way that she looked like she was a mime doing the I’m-stuck-in-an-invisible-box routine!

The guy made a few sample copies and it looked right except that there were 2 copies of each page (side 1: page 59 and page 59. Side 2: page 60 and page 60). We pointed this out using sign language. He tried again and now there were FOUR pages to a side! We sent him back again (all with lots of laughter and good nature all around, thankfully). Then we got it back to 2 to a page, only this time it was out of order (60 then 59, etc) so we pointed THAT out, and finally he got it just right. We all high fived each other. High fives were the common language in that print shop.
Then we went back to that tea shop and sure enough, our Cassanova treated us to not only tea but also two beers each and one Raki (anise liquor, ubiquitous in the regions we have traveled on this trip under different aliases (Arak, Ouzo)). He had similarly recruited three Spanish girls and two Czech girls, so the table contained 7 hot women plus these two Turkish guys, which was funny because it was so blatant. Still, they wouldn’t let us pay for anything, and it was fun to sit around getting tipsy with such an international crew.

The day before at the spice market we’d met a Turkish-Italian guy named Roberto who was cool and seemed genuine. He gave us his number and we’d made plans to have dinner with him that same night, so we ended up telling him to come to this place and he came with his friend who also works in the market. Then it came out that his name was not Roberto and he wasn’t Italian—basically he’d told us all kinds of stories before he thought he’d ever see us again, so we got to make lots of fun of him as his real story came out. I’ve done similar things—when you meet someone in a random place, it can seem fun to give a fake name and a fake story. I’ve never really been burned before, except by one guy I met at a Pomona happy hour and told I was pursuing a career as an actress and really went into great detail before telling him it was all a joke. He wasn’t amused and I’ve never spoken to him again. But I digress.

We left the café and these two guys, “Roberto” as we continued to call him and his friend, took us to a local restaurant where we got one last dose of our fave Turkish food (meat and eggplant in garlicky yogurt with tomato sauce). These guys insisted on paying for our meal! They also got charged WELL under what the menu had said (the perks of speaking Turkish?) and then tried to bargain the price down further before paying.

We got home and got some sleep before leaving for the airport the next day. We managed to spend every last lira cent at the airport before jetting out of Turkey and on to… Dubai. Which I didn’t think would be a stop at all, but it ended up being one of the most interesting ones yet!

Turkey, Part II

We arrived in Istanbul from an overnight bus on which I'd gotten max 5 hours of sleep. In college, this was a standard night's sleep, but by now it is a recipe for crankiness and a nap. We got to the hostel where Eve was staying. Then Carla stayed back to rest, and Eve and I went to the Blue Mosque and then to a neighborhood called Taksim, which has a big wide street and lots of modern shops. It is sort of the equivalent of the Union Square area of San Francisco.

Earlier that day I had seen an English-language newspaper article about the Turkish college entrance exam and how students were protesting over it. So when we arrived at Taksim square and saw an ENORMOUS demonstration, all one of the kids had to tell me was "entrance exam" before I had an idea of what it was about. We ate a kebab sandwich and then followed the crowd, listening to them protest. It was funny, because the rhythm of what they were saying sounded like what you'd hear in any American demonstration, but the words were total babble to us. Blah, BLAH! Blah blah BLAH! BLAH blah blah blah BLAH blah blah!

We followed the march all the way down the street. Unfortunately, this coincided with my camera deciding there was a lens error and refusing to close (it later fixed itself, to my great relief) so I have no pictures.

We went back and got Carla in the afternoon, and then we went to some Turkish baths. THAT was an experience. You pay and get a token, a scrubby mit, and a pair of black undies in a bag. Then you go to a changing room, put your clothes in a locker, and just wear the undies and a cloth wrap to the bath room, which is a big round room with a round marble slab in the middle. There are a bunch of women all around in their underwear, either laying out on the slab, washing others, or washing themselves in side rooms that open out from the main circle. Some have on bras, most do not. Before you let your imagination go in some sort of Playboy-Mansion direction, let me repaint this a little for you by saying that this is an all-ages, all-body types group of women. I think the average age of the employees was probably over 50. Oh, and it probably goes without saying that all of this was women-only (there was a separate facility for men).



I started by laying out on the marble slab, which was heated. It was nice to just relax for a minute, especially because what came next was not particularly relaxing for me! This woman came and tugged on my foot. She was about 5 feet tall and at least 55, and her flesh was.. abundant. And she was bossy! She spoke no English, so she would just kind of pull me around until I assumed the correct position. The first step was to be scrubbed with the mit, which caused rolls of dead skin to come off. It was all very fast and businesslike, but it was still weird to have a stranger's gloved mit swiping me all over. She did my front, then briskly rolled me over and did the back. Then she tossed a bowl of cold water over me. Yikes!

Then came the soaping part, and this was actually even less relaxing than the last part because I was TICKLISH!! She pulled a pillowcase out of sudsy water and filled it with air, then squeezed the air out over me, creating gallons of fine bubbles. It got around my neck and I could barely handle the ticklish feeling of it-- and then I got some in my face and mouth. Meanwhile, she was spreading it over my front and back. When she got to the feet I kicked reflexively, so I think she spent less time on the whole thing than she might have otherwise. Which was fine with me.

Then she led me to a fountain on the wall, scolded me in Turkish (for being ticklish? it was unclear) and left me there. I didn't know what I was supposed to do until Carla came over and told me that was the end of it. After that we went in the jacuzzi and hung out some more in a side chamber, splashing ourselves with warm water and just hanging out until the heat started to seem oppressive and we called it a day. We were allowed to sit and have a drink in the next room before we went to change and leave.

It was definitely a neat experience. I got to add another item to my list of "jobs I'm glad I don't have"-- bath house worker. Those women have to do some pretty significant physical work, and all in a room that is almost a sauna. And as I mentioned before, they are not particularly young!

The next day we each spent the morning working on errands--I went to the post office, Eve went in search of shoes to replace hers that were falling apart, and Carla worked on a job application. We met back up for lunch and then went to see the mosque of Suleiman the Great and then another mosque whose name I didn't catch.



After that we continued walking across the bridge to the north and ended up back in the Taksim neighborhood where we did some window shopping. Eve had a Rick Steve guidebook on Istanbul, and Rick talked about an area with famous Turkish food. First we got this quince dessert with water buffalo clotted cream on top. I don't know how I would rate this. By itself the quince was too sweet (think a lump of soggy fruit rollup but less tangy) and the clotted cream was like cold, gamey butter. Together it was better, and I ate probably a third of it before deciding I'd pushed my luck far enough.

Well, apparently Eve is an adventurous eater, so Carla and I offered to pay for her dinner if we could choose what was in it. We went to a restaurant famous for its sheep brains and tripe soup, and ordered one sheep brain salad. Eve ate it--and liked it! I tried it and it was hard for me to get down... not because of the flavor (there wasn't much) but because the texture was like... extremely dense cream? Dense, creamy tofu? It was just not my bag.

Then we figured, why not get her a tripe soup too? Despite growing up in El Paso, I'd managed to never try menudo. Eve tasted the soup and said it was okay, so I had a taste. People had told me of tripe that it was "chewy" but I wasn't really ready for the KIND of chewy. It was like cutting the fatty part off a piece of chicken, then eating that. Or like skin. I don't know. It was awful! I swallowed it but my dinner was over after that. Plus, the broth was SO... barnyardy. It tasted the way a goat shed smells. Eve ate about half of it. What a champion!



Then yesterday was a kind of catch-up day-- we went for a run/stretch/pushups session, took a ferry to Asia, and cooked dinner, then called it an early night. Carla started a resolution to go to bed at 11 and wake up at 7, and of course my body has adapted all too well to this scheme-- such that nightlife has started to seem out of the question. Nonetheless, today our plan is to go to Princes Island and then go see live Balkan Music tonight. I may have to take a nap!

Turkey Part I

I wrote this two days ago but wasn't able to connect to the blog site from the hostel where we were..

We got to Istanbul this morning on an overnight bus from Cappodocia. Never say never… but if I never go on another overnight bus, I will not feel like my life was incomplete.

Cappadocia was pretty unbelievable! After spending 3 days on Kos—of which two were rainy and therefore spent mostly indoors, catching up on sleep and stuff that needed to get done (e.g. federal taxes) and the third was gorgeous and we spent it driving around the island and frolicking on turquoise beaches—we took a ferry to Bodrum, Turkey. Since leaving Bodrum, I’ve read about it in the guidebooks and apparently it’s an overrated tourist trap. Good thing I didn’t read that in advance, cause we loved it there! It had a big old harbor full of ridiculously tricked-out yachts, beaches, and hundreds of restaurants and cafes. It was cheap to stay there, and we had some incredible food. There’s also a giant medieval fortress there that houses the world’s biggest underwater archeology museum. (My assessment: castle is cool, museum element is sort of lame).

The other thing that stood out about the place is that just about all the downtown roads are completely torn up and under construction, which means that it’s kind of hard to walk around. You have to walk through torn up chunks of concrete and dodge traffic when the sidewalk ends on your side.

Now a word about language. We had finally gotten a few Greek words down, and then all of a sudden it was welcome to Turkey, where it takes six syllables just to say thank you! Phonetically it’s like this: teshekur ederem (quite a mouthful compared to “todah” (Hebrew), “shukran” (Arabic), or “efarishto” (Greek)). Over dinner one night with a Turkish traveler, we were discussing whether there was any way to shorten this, since it doesn’t exactly roll of the tongue as you’re peacing out of a souvenir shop or off a bus. How about just teshekur? Nope, doesn’t mean the same thing, apparently. He did say, however, that we could shorten it to “teshekur lehr” (equivalent of “thanks” instead of “thank you”). Excellent. So we’d been trying out the shortened version, still honing the pronunciation, when one day, our friend Eve thanked someone quickly and it sort of turned into one word: teshekurlehr! Pronunciation-wise, it was more like this: “teshickular!”…getting the idea? Now we have a good time cracking each other up by thanking people with a reference to a certain male gonadal element.

Okay so back to Turkey… after a night and day in Bodrum, we took an overnight bus to Ankara and basically got right on another bus to Cappodocia where Eve was waiting for us. We last saw her in Eilat after that epic clubbing night and before we almost missed the bus to Tel Aviv. We had a great time catching up in Cappadocia! We stayed in the same hostel and she was able to show us the good hikes since she’d already been there for a few days.



We hiked through a lot of gorgeous scenery—the first two days were beautiful! The third day Carla and I went on a tour of an underground city, the world’s 3rd biggest canyon, and a monastery carved into a spiky mountaintop. It was all pretty spectacular. I particularly liked the underground city. The deal was that early Christians were apparently being hunted by all kinds of other people, and they dug this city so that they could stay alive and worship as they chose for centuries. During peace time they lived underground but farmed above. During times of emergencies, though, they retreated into their caves and lived off food stores and water from subterranean wells.

These people were really resourceful! Their chambers were a maze of stairs, tunnels, and rooms—and booby traps for whoever tried to follow them! They had big stone discs waiting by thin holes along passageways so that they could roll the stones through and block the tunnel in case of attack. They also had holes in the floor that intruders wouldn’t know about, so they could escape through them and cover them up—or leave them and wait for their enemies to fall through in the dark. Exploring the city, I felt a little like a character in the Goonies.



There was one tense moment: Carla was taking a picture and I was waiting for her, when we realized our group had gone down a stairway/tunnel. We started down, and after a while a few people came up the same tunnel. We flattened ourselves against the side to let them pass… and then they were followed by more people, and more people! We were pressed against the wall with people streaming past us without any intention of letting us move. It was pretty funny, though I think Carla was feeling rather oppressed. Finally we broke away from the wall and forced our way past the people coming up. Turns out we were like 6 steps from the bottom and our whole group was waiting.

The last thing we saw on the tour was a carved-out mountaintop monastery. It was really gorgeous and so impressive that they had a) carved out these fantastic chapels and chambers and b) managed to conduct their lives up there for generations.





There was a view from the monastery that apparently inspired the Ewok homeland's depiction in Star Wars. It made me realize that, yes, this area looks like a place that aliens would live on some other planet-- it's THAT different from anyplace else on earth!

Written Greek looks to me like a giant math equation. This may sound stupid, but I never really put together that the Greek letters used in engineering are the VERY SAME Greek letters used in...Greek. I can't do it quickly, but I can actually read Greek based on my experience with math. Of course I can't tell what the words mean, so it only gets me so far.

We spent a few days in Athens, then went on a ferry to the island of Santorini. In heading to the Greek isles, all I was really going for was to relive that scene from The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants where Lena goes to that island and they have to ride donkeys up stairs along sharp cliffs, with cute white houses all drenched in sunshine. Well, minus the sunshine, Santorini was it! I still need to look up where they actually filmed the movie (and go there in July or something). But still, Santorini was lovely and we spent two days zipping around on an ATV. It was a wonderful time and the sun was out long enough to make some beach time essential.

After two days on Santorini, we took an overnight ferry to Kos. As we were waiting at the ferry terminal, it started hail-storming! And so far in Kos, it has been raining pretty much the whole time. Turns out this is off-season for a reason. Still, one of my favorite parts of Santorini was the fresh smell of all the grass and wildflowers, plus apparently all of the area is absolutely swarming with tourists in the high season (and prices are much higher).

We're off to Turkey tomorrow and are going to try to meet back up with Eve in the first few days. We've also booked our flight to Nepal for April 17. It includes an overnight stop in Dubai, so looks like we may have the added bonus of being able to see Dubai's crazy architecture all lit up...

Greecey. Very greecey.

Greece has been a nice break. We have been average American tourists—seeing the ancient ruins, speaking English, souvenir shopping (dangerous business when you’re traveling light, but I bought a couple of pairs of earrings and a scarf, of which I had neither with me before, as well as a replacement purse after experiencing a lot of frustration due to the everything-is-always-under-everything-else situation first introduced in our South America journey. The new bag has a pocket for nearly everything important, so I always know where to look for a camera, change, bus ticket, etc.

Also in Greece, we slept more and I used more internet. I was really tired the whole time. I finally quit being sick, basically as soon as we left Israel, but I still haven’t gotten all my spunk back. Hopefully that will happen soon.
Israel was just really intense. The week at Livnot was jam packed with activity and opportunities to spend time with people. I had to walk the line between trying to rest enough to get well, and not missing out on the activities and social opportunities offered. After the week officially ended, I stayed on for a few days. Sunday morning was hectic as all the Miami crew was getting ready to leave and finally got out the door for Jerusalem. Carla went with them. I stayed behind and breathed a big sigh of relief to have some quiet time at last, where there was some hope for having a one-on-one conversation without being overheard or interrupted! I went for a gorgeous hike that afternoon with the people who remained—Gary and Mike, who were in the program with me, along with Shayna and Stephanie who worked there. It was a terrific little group!

Monday that same group (more or less) went to Tiberius and rented bikes, then biked partway around the Sea of Galilee. I stayed in Tiberius with Mike and Gary and we camped on the beach. It was, to date, the only time I’ve used the ground pad I brought—but I was the only one who got a good night’s sleep, so for that night at least it was well worth it!

On Tuesday I was planning to hike back to Tsfat with the guys, but I ended up not feeling well—and then we ran into another friend from Livnot on the bus to our hiking start point, and he was regretful that he couldn’t join because he had a rolling suitcase to get back to Tsfat. So I took advantage of the serendipity by switching his suitcase with my daypack and his pricier ticket with my short-distance ticket and share of the common lunch, and I headed back to Tsfat. I was a little sad when they arrived back raving about the marvelous views and all, but with respect to my health it was probably the right call.

Wednesday I left for Jerusalem early in the morning. I got there at 11:30 and spent a good hour trying to find Carla at the bus station. It wasn’t anybody’s fault; we didn’t know the place in advance and were waiting for each other in different places, twice. She had her phone, so I was able to call her from the cells of generous strangers. It wasn’t great, but we got out of there before 1, which was cool because not two hours later a bomb went off at the very spot where my bus had dropped me off!

We walked around the old city and spent the night in this place called Heritage House where you can get two free nights. And by “you” I mean “non-orthodox Jewish youths.” While I definitely liked the place, there were some uncomfortable moments based around some people judging whether others were Jewish enough. I didn’t actually feel any judgment myself, but I saw some pretty uncomfortable interactions between some of the staff and a lovely girl named Jen who was also on the Livnot program with us. Jen is an African American convert to Judaism, and while she is more spiritually Jewish than most of the non-orthodox people I’ve ever met, I bet she gets a LOT of unfortunate reactions from people who look more “Jewish”. Which is so sad—I really had no place being at Heritage House, but because I am white with brown hair and green eyes, I pass for more Jewish than Jen.

In general, being in Jerusalem was exhausting in that I felt like I was constantly being put into a box, and not necessarily one I actually fit into. The categories there were not native or foreign, or American, European, Asian—the categories were Jew, Christian and Muslim. I wasn’t sure whether I should go for Jew or for Christian (aka neutral in any conflict or discussion). Really, I am neither. So I was ready to leave Jerusalem.

The last weekend we spent in Efrat with Shayna’s family, and it was both completely awesome and completely exhausting! We did a full shomer Shabbas (aka no electricity, tearing TP, writing, electronics, musical instruments, carrying things, etc. from sundown Friday till Saturday night) and instead spent our time eating huge meals, singing and praying, and having one deep philosophical discussion after the next. Shayna’s family is overflowing with joy and song and love for one another, and it was inspiring to be around. Carla and I both saw traditions we’d like to incorporate into our future lives.

After that we spent a last day and 1.5 nights in Tel Aviv before heading to the airport to go to Greece. I got to spend more time with Maya, my friend who I met the last time I went to Israel (in 2003) and she’s always a ton of fun so I was really glad to be able to hang out. We all went to the beach together, and overall I just had an exceptionally nice day. Maya took me and Carla to South Tel Aviv, where she works with refugees from Sudan, Eritrea, and Ethiopia. It was pretty impressive to see the presence that she is in that community after being here for only about 7 months—one person after the next stopped her in the street to say hello and it was clear that she is much loved, which is unsurprising given her fabulousness. We learned a lot about the conflicts between immigrant and refugee communities and other Israelis, and it was a reminder of how much darkness there is in the world… and also of how much there is to be done to make it better. A little kindness can go such a long way.

Our flight to Greece was at 6:00 and though we left the house at 2:45, we did not get on that plane till about 6:10. Transportation to the airport was tight, and per usual there was some max-speed running while carrying all our luggage involved. But really the hold up was security at Ben Gurion. We got fully searched and frisked. And I am talking FRISKED. If I had been carrying a bullet in my underwear, it would have been found. They ended up walking us to the plane, which is good because we would have been pretty angry if we had missed our flight after arriving more than two hours in advance for it.

So that catches us up to the present… the only bummer about blogging so infrequently is that we’re missing out on the little vignettes! So I’ll try to work on some of those. Did I mention that we are on an 8 hour ferry ride? So now there is finally time to sit and hash out some good writing…