Erica & Joe's Travels

Highlights from Chile and Western Argentina

2009-05-09T12:38:00.000-07:00

For the last two weeks, we have been gallivanting in Western Argentina and Chile. We are nearly done completing a large loop: Buenos Aires to Mendoza from where we crossed the Anes to Santiago, then to San Alfonso (mountain town close to Santiago), Chillan (a non-descript Chilean city that we stopped in on the way south just to go somewhere typical and unknown) and Pucon (about 9 hours south of Santiago in the Chilean Lake District), from where we crossed over the Andes back into Argentina. We are currently in San Martin de los Andes, from where we will return to Mendoza and then Buenos Aires later in the week.

Highlights have included:

Renting bikes in a wine-country town outside of Mendoza and visiting wineries via bike, on a scary road where there was no divide between us and big trucks! There are no bike-helmets in Argentina! I told Joe to tell my mom I was having fun at the time of my demise, if I face-planted in front of a truck that day.

Seeing the Andes from various locations. North and South, Argentine-side (where it is drier) and Chilean side (where there tends to be more greenery, especially further south. Joe calls it the "rain shadow." Moisture from the Pacific accumulates on the Chilean side of the mountains, but doesn't make it over to the Argentine side).

Having a beautiful, outdoor lunch on el Dia de los Trabajadores (as my Tio Hugo called it, a Holy Day in Chile...also, a federal holiday which occurs on May 1) in Santiago with 3 generations of the Jordan family (my Gramasita's brother Hugo and his family). We had such a nice time. Juan Francisco (Cacquico) cooked an enormous side of meat for the family and Francessca made such vegetarian rarities (in Chile) as tofu and tabouleh (or something like it). Joe and I felt like it was like being with my immediate family (if we all lived in Chile).

Visiting Felipe Orrego's (my cousin Jessica's dad) house and community in San Alfonso, a gorgeous, tiny town in the Maipo River Valley, in the foothills of the Andes, outside of Santiago. His house (which is about 1/2 a mile from the nearest road. read: everything in their house has to be brought by hand!) is unlike any we have ever visited. It has been built over many years by he and his wife and family, with things they carried there themselves. It has one of the best views I have ever seen from a private house. Joe and I sat on the roof-top deck one evening as the sun set, snuggled under blankets, freezing our asses off, as the Andes turned pink before us.

Spending gorgeous days in the northern reaches of Chilean and Argentinian Patagonia. Joe climbed a snow-topped volcano (Villarica) and said it was one of the hardest things he has ever done. We went hiking on a sunny day outside of Pucon and lost the trail, so we ended up traipsing through private land, where we met friendly domestic animals but no people and ate a picnic on a hillside overlooking the valley. It is now raining in San Martin de los Andes, in Argentine Patagonia, and we are inside by a fire. It is the first time we have seen rain in nearly 2 months in South America and the first time we have been in winter in nearly 1.5 years. I forgot that it can be kind of pleasant, especially when there is a nice view and a fire going.

I Want to Open a "Closed Door"

2009-04-26T05:46:00.000-07:00

We are leaving Buenos Aires today, after a month, for Western Argentina (Mendoza), and our last night here was one of the best: we went to a puerta cerrada "closed door" restaurant.
These restaurants are a relatively (5-10 years?) new phenomenon in Buenos Aires, and they seem to be very popular among foreigners like us. They are basically a restaurant in someone's home. When you make the reservation, they give you the address and you show up at a certain time to eat and drink in someone's home. So fun!
We went to Casa Felix last night, run by a 1/2 Argentino (male chef), 1/2 American couple (female hostess). He was born to a vegetarian family here in Buenos Aires (such a rarity) and cooks mostly vegetarian food, which was perfect for me. There were 4 vegetarian courses and the main course was fish. This couple has a perfect life, it seems. They open their beautiful house 3 nights a week to 12 guests. They have traveled and continue to travel throughout Latin America, to learn about different foods and culinary traditions. They can close their informal restaurant whenever they like to travel. They have an incredible back garden where they grow regional herbs and spices. I want to be them, but first I have to learn to be an amazing chef. The food was so memorable and different and perfectly executed. The evening was very social and we talked to other guests from the U.S. (Americans outnumbered everybody else), the U.K., Argentina and Malaysia and we went to a traditional tango club afterward with some new friends we had met.

Uruguay

2009-04-20T05:06:00.000-07:00

We spent the weekend in Uruguay. Two nights, two cities, a bit of a whirlwind. And when we arrived back in Buenos Aires late last night, both of us felt very happy that we were home and heading back to our crappy, basement apartment.

There is a ferry that travels from Buenos Aires to Colonia, Uruguay several times a day. It is a huge modern affair, and there is live entertainment half-way through the trip. We were treated to a dance competition and a guy singing ballads.

Colonia is one of the prettiest towns we had ever been to. We couldn't think of one colonial town in the Americas we had seen that was more perfectly restored and preserved. It is a very small city, founded in the 1500s by the Portuguese. It sits on a peninsula out in the Rio de la Plata, which is an enormous river mouth that you can't see across. It was very warm while we were there, and we walked around in the sun, enjoying the light, the flowers, the water, the sunset, etc. We sat outside at romantic cafes with candles on the tables on cobblestone streets. It was endlessly pleasant. And very expensive. Uruguay is a destination for rich Argentinians and Brazilians. It is surrounded by the large, South American super-powers and receives a lot of their money and tourism. We could not have stayed there much longer, as we were continually shocked by the prices.

Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, could not be any different than Colonia. It is not perfectly restored whatsoever. It has an aesthetically awful (in many instances) combination of 60s era modern, ugly buildings set next to colonial buildings. And it has an eerily abandoned feeling. Joe and I walked around and sat in parks and plazas, with the aim of watching people and life go by, as we do in every place we visit, but there were hardly any people to watch! We were often nearly alone in these public places! But we liked it there anyway. It had a good vibe: relaxed and friendly and real.

And now we are back in Buenos Aires for another week before taking a trip to Chile and Western Argentina.

Buenos Aires' Idiosyncracies

2009-04-15T05:03:00.000-07:00

In addition to dog poop everywhere (this drives me crazy!), Buenos Aires has some other funny features worth sharing.
The problem of "moneda" (coins) is never-ending! No one has coins or will give out coins. Business-owners are not able to get coins from the banks. If you buy something that costs a fraction of a Peso, people will just round down (to the customer's benefit), so they do not have to give out coins. BUT, the city buses, which are great and convenient and fast and run all night long (very loudly, down our street), ONLY take coins. So, there is a constant struggle in this city to get coins and horde them! I am getting pretty good at it myself. In the first place, Joe gives me all his coins, which is key (he likes to take the subway more than the bus). Secondly, I am getting very used to lying. Any shopkeeper who asks me if I have exact change or any moneda at all, I just say "no", very emphatically. Sometimes, that results in a coin for me.
This is a very late-night city. Restaurants do not open on the weekends until 8:00 or 8:30, but even then, the waiters are usually just setting up because no one comes to eat until 10:00. Except me and Joe! We are ravenous by 8:00 and peaking in windows by 8:30, hoping that we will not be eating alone, again. But we usually are. We feel like giant losers. We haven't even attempted to go out and see any music or anything like that. That doesn't start until 2-4 in the morning. There are some clubs here, seriously, that do not open until 4 a.m. on the weekends, when we have been asleep for at least 5 hours, having eaten dinner by ourselves at 8:30.

These are Memories that Make us Cry

2009-04-10T07:21:00.001-07:00

There have been so many times over the past 10 months when things have seemed perfectly clear and happy and we have felt connected to people and inspired and hopeful by things we have encountered. There have been other times when we have felt overwhelmed, out of our element, and discouraged...At a camp site in New Zealand one beautiful night, we began to make a list of some of the memories that have been most impressionable. Africa featured heavily on our list; it was full of intense emotions for us...Thinking about these memories makes us cry.

* Querido* Old men are the best customers at traditional cafes, here in Argentina. They seem out of an another era, and would make great photos, sitting at sidewalk tables, deep in conversations over coffee and cigarettes. The other day, while we were sitting in a cafe, we saw two old men hug each other and say goodbye. One called after the other, "Ciao, querido!" (beloved one).

*Gentile* On our 3rd day in Senegal, we were feeling a little bit overwhelmed. We had failed to be adventurous enough to take a bus from the capital city to the beach town of La Somone, where we were staying. The bus station had been desolate and daunting and we ended up spending way more money than we wanted to take a 3 hour cab ride out to the beach. While swimming in the ocean just outside the walls of our over-priced, Western-style, fancy hotel (there weren't other options for us. Senegalese people don't often stay at hotels. only priveleged tourists like us do), 4 beautiful and friendly Senegalese boys started talking to us. In a mixture of French and English, they welcomed us to their country, asked us about the United States and ourselves. At one point, one of the boys told Joe, "you are so gentle..." The word for kind in French is gentile, so we knew what he meant. We loved it. The caretakers of our hotel, Le Fenix, there in La Sonome were also amazing. They were not accustomed to a "high-dollar" tourist (at $90 US, we spent more in 1 night at this hotel than most Senegalese make in 1 month) like Joe stopping to talk to them. From the gardener to the manager, Joe befriended all of them. He practiced his French and got all kinds of travel advice (the manager, at one point, told Joe that "every price in Senegal is negotiable"- a very important thing to know!) and information about Senegalese culture from them. While I could not understand what they talked about (in French), I watched these guys seek Joe out time and time again (the gardener knocked on our door one time, just to chat). They did not stop smiling the whole time they talked to him.

*Tortue* The Dogon country in Mali is anthropolically famous because when French academics "discovered" (began to study) the area in the 1960s, people were living in clay-walled homes in the cliffs. They had been there for hundreds of years, and their cliff- dwellings were advantageous because they were camouflaged and from their vantage point the Dogon people could spot danger and enemies for miles. Now, the Dogon have moved out of the cliffs and down the valleys, but they are still a very distinct people, with a different language and history than others in Mali and the region. Taking a guided walk (there are no roads) through the Dogon is high on the list of tourist attractions in West Africa. Usually, walks last for 3-4 days and tourists sleep in Dogon villages along the way. Finding a good, Dogon guide to lead you on a walk is a challenge, though. We decided to take our trip to Dogon with our new friend Nick, who we had just met, from Maine. Nick was a Peace Corps volunteer in Guinea (a West African nation close to Mali) and he had a recommendation for an English-speaking guide from another Peace Corps volunteer. Our guide's name was Usman. He was awesome. But he spoke almost no English. We communicated with him in broken English, broken French and broken Malinque (the local language in Guinea that Nick spoke and most Malians kind of understand). We did not learn anything about Dogon people or their land or history from Usman. At one point, he was trying to tell us a story about the the spiritual leader of Dogon villages/clans who would lock themselve in a clay house with an alligator and a tortue for days in order to divine some inspiration and direction. Nick asked what a "tortue" was? We really never knew what Usman was talking about and we usually didn't ask. But this time, we did. It was hot as hell and we had been walking all day long in the blazing heat. We were standing next to ancient, pygmy (a very long time ago, the Dogon apparently used to be pygmies) cliff dwellings and Nick wanted to know what a "tortue" was. Turns out it's a tortoise (French). But the four of us giggled up there for about 20 minutes. Usman did not know why we were giggling and we didn't really either, but we were nearly hysterical with laughter. Felt great.

*Le Compagnard* Our last nights in Mali were a blast, surprise, surprise. We met up with Nick, our Mainer Peace Corps friend, again, in the capital city, Bamako, and saw some incredible live music and became regulars at a Peace Corps/ex-pat bar called Le Compagnard. We had a little crew of people who spoke varying degrees of English and French. We communicated with a lot of hand signs. Our first night there, I realized that the 3 men sitting next to us were speaking Spanish, which is a rarity in West Africa. Not only were they speaking Spanish, but I was understanding everything they said, which meant they were not Spaniards. I got excited and leaned over and asked them where they were from. They were Mexicans! In Mali! [at one point we asked them if there were any other Mexicans in Mali and they answered us in all seriousness that there was one more, a woman who worked at a company in Bamako]! Joe and I, being great big Mexico-lovers, began an immediate rapport with these men, who were pilots with a Malian airline and had been living and flying in Mali for a year. They joined our eclectic group, which now spoke a mix of French, English, and Spanish and hung out together til the bar closed the next two nights! Joy!

*Akon* Akon, a world-famous rap/R&B singer, who moved to Jersey City from Senegal when he was young, is a national icon in Senegal. Everyone listens to him at all times, everywhere. We were fans before we got to Senegal, but while we were there, we became indoctrinated. Sadly, people in Senegal don't know what he is singing about. He sings in English, and they don't speak English. That does not prevent people from singing along, however. During our first week in Senegal, and in West Africa, we were lying on our hotel bed in the beach town of Saly, sweating to death, with the fan turned up high. But we could still hear the little kids outside, in the poor neighborhood where we were staying, singing Akon. They were butchering the English (and had no idea what they were singing about), but they sounded damn good.

*Angel girl* We had some rough times in Senegal (well, all of West Africa). The heat, the dust, the unexpectedly high costs, the very long, horrible bus rides or very expensive cab rides to get from place to place wore on us...A week into the Senegal portion of our trip, after taking a couple-hour cab ride, we arrived in a town called Joal-Fadiout that our guide book had described as a historical, 1/2 muslim, 1/2 catholic beach town. I despaired upon seeing it. The beach was awful, the town was super undeveloped and I could not imagine what we were going to do there. Luckily for us, the very young (16? 18 year old?) proprietress of our hotel was an Angel. I don't know how else to describe her. She had the sweetest, most lovely voice, smile and face. She soothed me down to my core. She wore a head scarf/covering so we could only see her perfect little face- no hair, no neck, etc. She made everything better when she smiled at us. She made us dinner the night that we stayed at her hotel. Joe told her that I was a vegetarian and she had many questions about that fact. "Did I eat rice? Tomatoes? Zucchini? Did I drink beer? Tea?" Normally, this might have been a bit annoying after a while, but I didn't care, as long as she kept coming to talk to us. She made our time in an otherwise run-down hotel in a very strange, desolate but interesting town...

*Banfora boat children* Burkina Faso is the fourth-poorest country in the world according to the United Nations development index. It feels like it, too. One day while in the small, pretty city of Banfora, we rented the most horribly decrepit bikes imaginable so that we could visit a regional park with a lake where hippo herds lived. After suffering through the ride on our stupid bikes, we arrived at the lake. But the boat man was not there to take us to see the hippos. So, a man sat us down in some chairs in the dirt at a little store (can I call it that? they sold soda, that was it) to wait, while he went to summon the boat man. Needless to say, we were a novelty in the area. Several kids came to sit by us and stare. It was hard not to stare back, especially because they were all awfully skinny and deformed in some way. One kid could hardly walk because he had bandied legs, another had a giant, distended belly from malnutrition and they all had orange hair because they were missing essential vitamins. I tried to smile at them, but I was nearly crying the whole time. They were so cute and so earnest and I wondered if they were going to make it in life? Would they see adulthood? While we were sitting there, a gorgeous, fat little baby girl came running into our circle. She was about 2 and she had incredible energy, while the other kids were lethargic. She ran around and grabbed things and threw things and generally acted like a 2 year old. I was transfixed: a healthy child! I could not help feeling like I wanted to abduct her and take her far away. I wanted to make sure she retained her health and energy and enthusiasm.

*Mali/Burkina border* We took a horribly over-crowded, miserable little van on an relatively untraveled route to get from Mali to Burkina Faso. We had successfully gotten ourselves stamped out of Mali, at the Malian side of the border. It was a bit of a question how it would go because we were 2 of only 4 tourists on the bus and sometimes border guards might ask for a "donation" to ensure our passage from one country to the next. The Burkina side of the border consisted of a lone, cement building in the hot, red dust with nothing around for miles. One guy, one desk, one stamp in a cement building. This border guard took his time. He had nothing else to do, no other entertainment, so he talked to every single person on the bus, while filling out their visas. Joe had been in there with him for a really long time with no progress on our passports, but was having a great time chatting, when a Burkinabe young man who had been living in France and was returning to Burkina to visit his family, slipped the border guy his passport with a 1000 CFA note (about $2.5) in it. He wanted quick attention, obviously. Duh, Joe, I thought: why didn't you try that trick? But the border guard took the note out, gave it back to the kid and said that he would need it while he was studying in France. It was amazing: an immigration official, with nothing, in the middle of nowhere, giving back a French resident an amount of money that would buy a Coke in France, but might make a real difference in his own daily life in Burkina...

*Joburg Bus Station* Johannesburg: the most dangerous city in the world, apparently. South Africa has a serious problem with crime and violence and we always had to be very vigilant while there. We were only going to Johannesburg in order to fly home, and we had been hearing scary things about it the whole time we were in the country. We arrived in Joburg on the bus. The hostel we were staying out was going to send someone into the bus station to escort us out to the car, because the neighborhood has such a bad reputation for violence. We were just supposed to stay inside the station. Fine, but I had to go the bathroom. Was that allowed/advisable/smart? Would I be mugged or knifed? I had to go find out, but I told Joe to flag down one of the many cops hanging out in the station if I took longer than 5 minutes. I went and got in line for the ladies room. I was the only white woman in a crowd of very large, very tall black African women, most of whom had enormous and heavy bundles that they carried on their heads when they moved up in the line. I stood there nervously, but as I approached the front of the queue, one of these ladies told me that I was next (someone had tried to cut me in line and I was going to let her! she had 100 pounds on me), another told me that their was no toilet paper and a third handed me some out of her own bag. They did not smile, but they made me feel safe- like people were watching out for me in the most dangerous city in the world.

More Memories that Make us Cry

2009-04-10T07:16:00.000-07:00

Asia

*Star hotel boys* I had made a reservation for us before arriving in India at a budget hotel in one of the most crowded, ancient (cheap) neighborhoods, called Pahar Ganj, in Delhi. I wanted there to be a cab driver from the hotel at the airport to pick us up. I knew that India was going to be overwhelming and I wanted this small comfort upon arrival. Pahar Ganj was certainly overwhelming. And very exciting, too. We stayed there again, when we returned to Delhi before flying out to Nepal. Our second time there, we "upgraded" our hotel (maybe $12 rather than $10). The best thing about the Star Hotel was their young employees. Two 18-year old boys who offered us food and drink ("room service, it is available; very good food it is available; king fisher beer it is available") 5 times a day. They knocked on our door to ask us if we wanted beer. Strange room service. Finally, Joe asked for a kingfisher beer. The boy was elated. He went out into the neighborhood (maybe his dad or uncle owned the beer stall?) and brought us back not very cold beer and marked up the price, of course. It was still very cheap and Joe gave him a tip. Another time, we told the boys that our air conditioner was not working. They came in with a knife, severed a wire, fused it back together with their fingers and told us not to touch the wire or we would make fire. We loved their ingenuity! How many hotel workers in the US would be able to fix an air conditioner like that? My favorite memory of these boys (there were two and they were sort of interchangeable, both cute, usually together, etc), was when we were walking in the dark, down one of the crowded, bazaar, festival like alley-streets of Pahar Ganj and we ran into one of them. He was listening to his headphones, but he quickly ripped them out of his ears, grabbed Joe's hand (a bit of a schock since we knew exactly 2 people in all of Pahar Ganj's 1000s of residents) and with a beaming smile, shook his hand for a prolonged moment. Joe was his friend.

*Queue system* With one exception, we only traveled in first class train cars in India. In first class, they give you beds if it is a night train or comfy reclining seats if it is a day train. They also give you surprisingly good food and cups of tea every time you turn around, on some first class services. The one time we took a 2nd class train (where there are no assigned seats and you have to push and shove to get one or stand up the whole time) was when we went to a non-touristy city called Ajmer. There wasn't a first class service to Ajmer from Jaipur, so we went to the 2nd-class ticket counter! Yikes! We didn't know how it worked, people were cutting us in line and we thought we were never going to be able to buy our tickets. Just as a very, very old (as old as India said Joe), very short and fat grandma-type viciously cut in front of Joe with elbows flying, a helpful Indian man tapped Joe on the shoulder and advised him, "Sir, there is no queue system here." So, we started to push our way to the front, just like proper Indians.

*The Royal Guest House* Aaah, Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. Not that we saw much of it. But we did get to see Barack Obama win the presidential election with a group of American and other ex-pats. One of the highlights of our lives. Even on election day, we were coming down with a miserable stomach sickness that was going to knock us out for days. High fevers, chills, stomach cramps, nausea and other ill symptoms I won't talk about. Luckily for us, we were staying at the super comfortable Royal Guest House, run by 4 generations of a Chinese origin family - all women. During our illness, when we were feeling brave and hungry enough to eat, we went downstairs and ordered something from their restaurant (family kitchen). We filled up our water bottle and ordered sodas to bring upstairs with us 5 times a day. They knew we were sick and they kept an eye on us. One night, we woke up to the horrible screaming of a tourist on the floor below us. Such a strange scene: she was convulsing and crying and screaming. It seemed that she had maybe ingested too much marijuana food (there was a restaurant in phnom penh that was infamous for it's pot food, but tourists regularly freaked out from it) and she was losing it. In our feverish state, we were very concerned and bothered by what was happening. But the mama bear proprietress of the hotel was holding her and massaging her feet while an American nurse who was staying at the hotel was checking her out. As long as mama was in charge and taking care of her, we felt comfortable - and went back to bed.

*Nicest people on earth* Thai (and Lao, who are ethnically and linguistically similar) people are the nicest people on earth. How can I generalize about a country of 60 million people? Because it's true! Every single interaction with a Thai person is a pleasure. It must have something to do with their religion, Buddhism, which they practice in such a serene and beautiful way, by offering fruit and tea and incense each day at the gorgeously colored small spirit houses outside of most homes. Or it could be because of their food which is so fresh and healthy and interesting and delicious that it would make any people kind. They are also so polite! They bow often and never in an obsequious way- they are just too respectful and kind. The pinnacle of Thai kindness for us was the beach resort in Ko Phi Phi where we spent Christmas with Joe's mom, Janie. Every staff member there went out of their way to remember us, take care of us and spread loving kindness with every interaction. On Christmas night, there was a banquet for the hotel's 60 or so guests. While we were eating, the staff, all wearing Santa hats, visited each table as a group, bowed together and wished us a Merry Christmas. Later that night, Joe bonded with the male staff at the bar, drinking beer and playing cards til early in the morning. We loved them!

*Mekong River pub crawl* Vientiane, the capital city of Laos, and the smallest, most relaxed capital we have ever visited. It has a great Mekong River location and there are at least 40 spots along the river to have a beer or eat some food. These places range from fancy establishments to wooden shacks on stilts. We decided to try a few of them one night. Almost as interesting as walking into the different places and interacting with the families who ran them was visiting the bathrooms. Some of these restaurants just didn't have them. At one place, where we ordered a papaya salad which was one of the spiciest things we've ever eaten (but served with such a big smile, we felt we had to eat it all), the waitress brought me across the street to the local police station to use the bathroom there (basically just a hole in the ground). On my way out, the policemen practiced their English on me. They said "I love you" and all giggled loudly. When Joe tried to use the bathroom at the police station, they practiced some more English on him; they said "No."

*Kachenchunga* We arrived in Darjeeling, India after dark, so it wasn't until the next morning that we got a look at the jaw-dropping view of the 3rd largest mountain in the world, Kachenchunga. You can see the Himalayas from anywhere in town, but a wonderful pedestrian promenade on a hillside in town has the best views. We walked along it in the early morning, when the old men were out congregating and exercising. At one point, after we had taken a hundred pictures of the mountains, one old man asked us if we wanted him to take a picture of us. We did! He took a break from his exercise and stretching routine, took our picture a few times and chatted. He welcomed us to his country and asked us about the United States. He had a daughter who lived in California. We loved India; even better than the mountains were the Indians.

*Medan shopping mall* We had a tough time in Medan, Indonesia. I got deathly sick, we got into a fight with a hotel owner and we saw a kid passed out on the pavement with his eyes rolled back in his head (he might not have been passed out). But before those miserable adventures, we visited the mall where there was a McDonald's and an internet cafe. I walked behind Joe in the mall and observed how people stared at him. There are not a lot of white people in Medan. Nor tall people. Nor people with blue eyes and light hair. People stopped walking, lifted their short little heads up and just stared at him. Kids tried to touch him as he walked by. One woman whose whole family had stopped to stare, saw me, someone their height and closer to their color, walking behind him and reached out to shake my hand. I was as close as they were going to get to the white,blonde giant.

Impressions of Buenos Aires

2009-04-06T09:02:00.000-07:00

We are getting quite comfortable here (though we are still considering moving cities, and perhaps countries, next month, and renting another apartment somewhere else). We are over our most miserable jet-lag, which lingered way too long; our sleeplessness made us feel like we were going crazy and also like Buenos Aires was not nearly as cool as it is.

We have been wandering around and exploring and these are some things we have found:

This is a really chill city. For its size (about 12 million in the metro area), there don't seem to be large crowds anywhere (of course, we are not commuting in the morning), people are rarely in a hurry. There is a relaxed and calm vibe pretty much everywhere. Even the bus drivers and taxis who loudly cruise down our street, honking at all hours of the day, do so with a smile on their faces.
People love dogs here and many people are dog-owners; no one picks up dog poop, though and it is everywhere, on the beautiful streets and sidewalks of this city. What??? Joe reminds me that this was the case in the U.S. until the 1980s or so, but I hardly believe him.
Argentinos and especially Porteños (people from Buenos Aires) do not like spicy food. The food they like is meat and pizza and empanadas and desserts and coffee and tea (mate). On every single corner, there is a great looking little cafe that serves these things. There are also specialty meat and specialty pizza restaurants. That's about it. You really have to look around for other kinds of food. And the grocery stores? They have 100 kinds of cookies (Argentinos eat more sweets per capita than anyone else in the world, apparently), lots of pasta and sauce (which all looks weird and comes in cans or cardboard boxes), some cereal and milk and not very impressive looking produce.
Our internet (DSL) goes out on the weekends. Joe thinks the administrator goes home on Friday night, the system fails and no one looks at it again until Monday morning. Never mind that our landlord charged us $90 for a month's worth of internet when it costs locals $15. It doesn't work 2 days of the week because people just don't care enough to fix the system! Generally, we are amazed by the things in this country that just don't really work. For example: the mail system (mail is opened up and lost routinely). The “tax”/bribe system: there is a 100% tax on technology products; those that are available here are at least two years old. If we were to try and buy a computer in the U.S. and have it sent here (which Joe was considering), we would have to pay a “tax” on it at customs of up to 100% its value. This is a middle-class Latin American country with a real magnetism. There are ex-pats from all over the world here and their tourism industry continues to explode. They have a good education system and a functioning democracy. So, it is ironic to find that in some things, the country is just dysfunctional (when we complained about the internet, our landlord reminded us that “this is the third world.” It just doesn't look like it.)
We were walking up the pedestrian mall downtown on Saturday, when our destination came into sight: Plaza San Martín. A leafy, large, 200+ year old square- and there were 100s of large painted bears in it! It was the coolest art installation I had ever seen. These bears (all about 6 feet tall and quite fat) are called the “Buddy Bears.”
They are supported by world institutions like the UN and international companies and they are traveling (very slowly) to different parts of the world. There is a bear from each country represented in the UN (I think about 170), and they had all been painted by an artist from country that the bear was “from.” All the bears had their hands up in the air, close to the hands of the bear next to them and the project's goal is to promote international peace, understanding and friendship. It worked for me! Several times, tears came to my eyes, as I looked at the bears from the countries and regions I have visited - and those I have not, too. I loved looking at each one, so beautiful and individual. The U.S. bear was a Statue of Liberty bear, which was cute but not very inventive. Argentina had two bears, which seemed a little unfair.
We like how Argentinos speak: an Italian-inflected Spanish. They don't speak too fast, but they have a different vocabulary than any other Spanish-speaker. I took a Spanish class last week that I really enjoyed. The class was composed of 5 women from 4 different countries, whose only common language was Spanish, taught by 2 male, Argentino professors. It was a lot of revision of verb tenses (ugh!) and lively conversation, which got quite rowdy at times. My challenge is now to continue to practice and study on my own, because classes are pretty expensive. I am going to begin volunteering this week at a community organization in a poor neighborhood near ours, so this will provide me with a new context in which to practice. Joe is busy working on his projects, when the internet is up. Even without Spanish classes, he tends to do most of the talking and questions-asking while we are out and about, trying to figure things out. He is not shy like me, which is great!

Upgraded, Downgraded, and Jet-lagged

2009-03-28T08:52:00.000-07:00

Joe and I were behaving like Beverly Hillbillies when we unexpectedly received an upgrade to first class on our 12 hour flight from New Zealand to Chile the other day. So fun! Chairs that moved into a million positions (I could not stop pressing all those fancy buttons), good food, wine, movies, service. Ironically, we hardly slept. I may have slept better cramped in with the unwashed masses back in Economy class. We are paying for it now. Our internal clocks are all messed up. We sleep during the day and are awake at night. We have just moved 18 time zones. We left at 5 p.m. New Zealand time on March 25th and arrived at 2 p.m. on March 25th in Chile, 12 hours later. This International Date Line is a strange item.
When we arrived in Buenos Aires, finally, we took a taxi to the neighborhood of the apartment we rented. We were early to meet the landlords and sat at an outdoor cafe across the street for a couple of hours, watching the neighborhood in action. We were mesmerized: nice weather, lively, diverse people, so much street activity! And we were using our Spanish and understanding people, despite the fact that Argentinos speak differently than anyone else. There are a lot of Americans floating around San Telmo neighborhood, and Buenos Aires as a whole . Many expats, and laid of New York bankers, apparently. It is a place people can live a good NYC-ish life for much less money than it would take there (of course).
Our apartment is a bit of a disappointment. The pictures on the brokers' web-site were amazing (and very misleading). It is on the first floor and it is a noisy, noisy corner. It is very small, too. I guess gringoes pay too much in these situations, for the convenience of being able to arrive at a fully furnished place with internet, etc. We are content, nonetheless. It is convenient and comfortable enough. We'll get used to the noise, I am sure. It is nice to unpack, and go to the grocery store and put things in our own fridge. After living out of our backpacks for 9 months, these small things seem like luxuries.
We have been walking around the city and trying to visit new neighborhoods each day. Our first night, we went to the wealthy neighborhood of Retiro to an American-owned bar (over-run with Americans) that was televising the NCAA college basketball tournament. I got to see Duke play for the first time all season: they lost! Horribly! I was so jet-lagged, I could hardly feel anything about it. I am going to start taking a Spanish course on Monday. Joe is going to start working on some projects with colleagues at home. We are going to keep exploring this city and looking into where we will go when our one-month lease is up.

After 9 Months on the Road...

2009-03-21T18:50:00.000-07:00

A Argentina nos vamos! We are returning to our hemisphere: to the Americas, where our hearts lie. We will even be in a time zone one hour later than Eastern Standard time, which will be so much easier to contemplate than 17 hours ahead of EST, as we have been in New Zealand.
We fly out to Buenos Aires this evening. Neither of us has been to Buenos Aires before and Joe has never been to Argentina. It seems everyone we meet who has spent time there recently can't say enough positive things about it.When we arrive, we will go straight to a little apartment we have rented for a month in the colonial neighborhood of San Telmo, famous for it's Saturday market replete with tango dancers and lots of tourists. The apartment has an indoor hammock, which is it's most winning feature, in Joe's mind. Having a home base for a while is something we're both excited about; our costs will be lower, we will get to know one place quite thoroughly, and we might even try to figure out what we are doing with our lives after this trip!

51 Days in Kiwi-Land

2009-03-21T17:59:00.000-07:00

We have spent longer here in New Zealand than any other place on this or other trips we have taken in the past. We have visited both islands, 12 of the 13 districts into which the country is divided, innumerable national parks and forests and all of the largest cities. The reasons for spending all this time exploring New Zealand? It is so damn far away from the United States and everywhere else, when will we ever get back? Also, Joe especially was so amped about our visit here, for all the different wilderness and outdoors activities available here. I had visited here once before, 9 years ago, for just 2 weeks, by myself and on a tight budget. This trip was different. We had time. And I had a wonderful companion, who asked me 10 times a day, "how sick is this?" After seeing yet, again, the most beautiful beach we'd ever seen the other day, Joe told me in all seriousness, "I feel bad for Kiwis (a very common way of referring to New Zealanders)." "Why, honey?" "Because every other place they ever visit is just going to pale in comparison to New Zealand." That pretty much sums it up. Following are some Kiwi themes that I want to describe further.

DOC, the beloved Department of Conservation- If we ever win the lottery, or otherwise become wealthy, the New Zealand Department of Conservation is going to get a very large donation from Erica and Joe. 1/3 of this country is preserved in public lands: national parks, forests, and scenic reserves. New Zealand is about the size of Colorado, but it is far more diverse. The density of gorgeous spots and pristine nature is unlike anywhere else. And it is so comforting to know that a responsible public entity like DOC is the caretaker of New Zealand's natural resources, and is doing such a damn good job of preserving them for Kiwis and visitors alike. Throughout the country, the DOC signs are dark green, with bright yellow lettering. Just the sight of them made us happy, because we knew we were about to enter some beautiful place and probably find a very well-run campsite there for us to spend the night.

Flora, Fauna and other Natural Wonders- We have seen some of the largest trees in the world, climbed giant sand dunes that made us think of the Middle East, seen many of the most beautiful beaches we've ever seen, walked up to a glacier, and I spotted a kiwi (a rare, nearly extinct, nocturnal, hairy flightless bird native to New Zealand). New Zealand is different to anyplace else on Earth; these volcanic islands separated from mainland Asia a very long time ago, thus the flora and fauna found here evolved very distinctly. New Zealand did not have any land mammals before the Europeans (accidentally) introduced rats, stoats and possums. Having no natural predators, these animals reproduce at an amazing rate and cause mass destruction in New Zealand's vulnerable environment. Several strange flightless birds have already become extinct, and the funny kiwi bird, the national icon, is nearly there, too. We met New Zealanders who had spent "a lot of time in the bush" and had never seen a kiwi. Yet, the one night Joe and I spent in kiwi habitat, we went for a night walk to try and see one and I spotted the little critter. So funnny looking! Long skinny, orange beak, twiggy legs, shaggy fur, running around in the forest's undergrowth.

"Staying at the Pub" s - Every town in New Zealand has a pub. Even if there are only 5 houses in the town, there will be a pub. And most of these pubs are also hotels; that is actually what they are called. Early on in our stay here, we found that these pub/hotels offer very reasonably-priced accomodation in quaint and historic buildings. And there's a pub downstairs! The patrons are generally older men and they are usually watching some sort of sport I don't understand: cricket or rugby, but the vibe is laid-back and friendly, like everywhere in New Zealand.

Weather - The weather makes or breaks a trip to New Zealand. When the sun is shining here, the ocean is magnificent blues and aquas, the stars are bright and plentiful, and hiking and camping and eating outside is a joy. When it is cold and rainy and windy, you feel like you will never warm up and never dry out. Our last two weeks here on the North Island have been fabulously "fine" (how they describe nice weather), but prior to that, we had the bad luck of following very bad weather around. It was miserable to camp, but we still tried to as much as possible, to keep our costs down. Because the geography of New Zealand is very compact and changes a lot, it might be very sunny and dry just 100 kms away from where we were camping, but we didn't know it! We were just holed up in our sopping tent.

Radio as a portal into Kiwi culture - We spent a lot of time in the car over the past 51 days. Our MP3 player has too few songs that we have heard too many times over the past 9 months, so we were captive to Kiwi radio much of the day.Radio New Zealand, particularly from 8-12 in the morning was our saving grace. The Kiwi version of NPR or the BBC packed in wonderful news and conversations about life and current events in New Zealand and the world. They read us stories, played us good (and bad music) and introduced us to Kiwi perspectives on a range of things from astro-physics to homosexuality in India and the current policies of the Chinese Reserve Bank. Unfortunately, when our favorite program host on Radio New Zealand came in fuzzy or was off the air, we had to root around for other things to listen to on the radio. This generally lead us to much less salubrious talk radio, which generally left us with our mouths open: "did he really just say that?" I am sure that a visitor to the U.S. would have the same reactions to much of the talk radio on our airwaves, but, damn, the things we heard expressed! That all religions (aside from some Protestants) are cults, that the "feral underclass" of New Zealand should be prevented from having children via operations, and that domestic violence is very common household problem here and people talk about (admit to it) quite freely. Listening to these very different kinds of radio made us think that Kiwis were astute and worldly in the morning and dumb and ignorant in the afternoons.

Produce - We have eaten some of the best produce of our lives here in New Zealand. The best avocados, apples, feta cheese, mussels, and oysters I have ever tasted are abundant and inexpensive in New Zealand. What a joy! Seafood chowder, Pinot Noirs and Sauvignon Blancs are sources of national pride. These items made cooking over a camp stove most nights quite all right.

Camper Vans - Nearly every tourist who comes to New Zealand rents a camper van and drives around the country. Thus, they are protected from the weather and are saved the misery of setting up a tent in the rain. They also fit in wonderfully to a thorough camper van culture alive here in New Zealand. Kiwis travel around their country in large vehicles: busses, vans, and trailers, all outfitted to live in comfortably for a week or a year. And we met many older Kiwi couples who did exactly that in retirement: lived in their camper or trailer in a national park or holiday park (camper van cities) for a season or more. We felt like morons, on occasion, with our small-sized vehicle and an orange tent as our home, especially when we saw other people dry in their campers, enjoying a cup of hot tea when it was squalling outside.

Maori - Thee original inhabitants of these islands were treated perhaps nearly as badly as those of Australia or the Americas by the British colonizers. Their land was taken from them for absurd prices, then exploited for all of its precious resources, guns and diseases were introduced to the detrminent of the Maori. Yet, Maori culture is alive and well in New Zealand. It is incorporated into the psyche of the country. Te Papa, the National Museum, in Wellington, the capital, is mostly a history and monument to the Maori and their culture. After all, the Maori were here for 800 years before Europeans were. And they came here in giant big canoes from Pacific islands like Hawaii! New Zealand, unlike any other Western nation that nearly destroyed its indigenous, has attempted to make reparations for past wrongs to the Maori. Lands and rights to resources taken from them under the Treaty of Waitangi (the document that "legalized" Queen Victoria's government domination of New Zealand and its inhabitants) have been returned to Maori tribes. Maoris are still poorer, on average, than other Zealanders and the places where they are the majority of the population, like the Eastern Cape of the North Island, are obviously more economically depressed than other parts of New Zealand. Maoris use cool Pacific/Polynesian designs, sometimes tatoo their faces and have a very wordy and syllabic language. Maori words and names are often printed next to their English equivalent throughout the country. Our favorite bit of Maori language is that "Wh" is pronounced "F". And there are "Wh's" all over New Zealand. Our favorite place name is "Whakapapa." Don't forget the "F" sound. We like to say it a few times a day, at least.

Tough Elements in the South Island

2009-02-15T19:01:00.000-08:00

We are at the ends of the Earth here....even though Joe talks more about Middle Earth and there is a whole sector of the tourism industry that is devoted to visiting Lord of the Rings filming locations. The days are long, there is still light in the sky at 10:30 p.m., and sometimes there is a fierce wind that seems to blow up directly from the South Pole- which isn't all that far away.

The elements are severe down here. The weather can change four times in a day. And the weather and scenery change drastically over short distances. When the sun comes out in force, it feels like our skin is sizzling cancerously and when it rains, I still feel cold when I am inside the tent, in my sleeping bag, with a wool hat and sweater on. But we are loving it! The other night we camped at perhaps the most idyllic, remote and beautiful location yet, in the Fiordlands National Park. We went hiking and skinny dipping and the entire time we had to fight against prolific amounts of sand flies that leave giant welts, enormous mosquitoes that flew inside our tent if we opened it for a second, and strange blue inch-worms, that were falling from the trees into our hair and onto our clothes (one time, I picked 4 inch-worms off of Joe at once).

New Zealand has an incredible National Park System. Much of the land, beaches and waterways are protected. And there are walking trails, camp sites, and public bathrooms in every last bit of this country. What land is not public, seems to be sheep grazing land. The stereotype (that Aussies love to joke about) is true. New Zealand is a country of sheep. There are 40 million sheep here and only 4 million New Zealanders. And sheep are cute! Sometimes we get stuck in sheep traffic jams, when they are being herded across country roads.

Joe is hiking one of the country's "Great Walks" right now: the Kepler Track. I walked the route with him for the first few hours but had previously decided to let him do the hard mountain-climbing and inclement weather bits by himself. I will see him in three days when he returns to the Fiordland town of Te Anau, where I am staying. He was ecstatic about it and I think he probably started running up the mountain as soon as I left him. He is strange and very cute like that; running up mountains with a heavy pack on his back is one of his happiest activities.

Kiwi Camping and Music

2009-02-07T13:11:00.000-08:00

We arrived in New Zealand 5 days ago and flew from Auckland to South Island, where our first order of business was to pick up our rental car and somehow fill it with cheap or used camping gear that would allow us to hike, cook, camp and weather 4 different seasons of harsh climate within 24 hours before heading to a 2-day music festival (A.R.E.A. 9) in the high country (near Mt. Cook).
We were successful in finding all kinds of gear (some used, some new and on sale), buying lots of supplies and heading out from Christchurch (the largest city on the South Island) in short order. We are ready! And have camped the last 3 days: no running water, very dry hot days and cold and windy nights. Dust everywhere! But it is beautiful, beautiful, other-worldly, Lord of the Rings geography.
The music festival left something to be desired, sadly. We saw some pretty good music. But the facilities, organization and variety of music was just not up the standard we are used to at our favorite festivals at home. We didn't realize we are music festival snobs, but we are. We vowed to not go to any music festivals outside of the United States ever again. We just kept thinking about how much better High Sierra in Northern California and Jazz Fest in Nawlins was. It was a beautiful setting though, and the music was all Kiwi and there was some good people watching, of course.
Now, we are off to camp and hike at Mt. Cook (the highest mountain in New Zealand). Since we plan on spending a lot of time away from civilization and in the back country, opportunities to blog will be minimal, here, we think. Until next time!

Australian Cities

2009-01-30T11:02:00.000-08:00

We have spent the last ten days in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. In our minds, we saved the best for last, as Sydney is one of the most beautiful and livable cities we have ever been. But, Melbourne is fantastic, quirky, has great neighborhoods and is a manageable size. And Adelaide may have a bit of a bad rap compared to the super-sized and more well known East Coast cities but we really enjoyed it, too.

Australia is great. People are friendly and we can speak to them! We have had really good and funny conversations with many locals. We met a girl at the bus stop in Adelaide who invited us out for drinks with her friends. We have talked Obama-loving politics with many an Aussie. And we have never seen as many good natured lovers of country as we did in Melbourne on Australia Day. Even more people celebrate Australia day than Americans do the 4th of July. Almost everyone had an Australian flag draped around their bodies, or Australian flag tatoos, or both. All Australians over 16 was drinking a whole lot on Australia and there were events and concerts and fairs and sports competitions and parades chock-a-block throughout the city. I don't know how the government paid for all the festivities in the midst of an economic downturn, I just imagine that Australians would not take news of a toned down Australia Day very well.

Another treat we have had in Sydney is that we have hung out with groups of Australians that we have connections to from other places. We went to a barbecue at Leanne Matthews' (the sister of my uncle Peter) house the other night and last night we went out with a bunch of young lawyers, one of whom we had met traveling in Africa 6 months ago. Oh yeah, and the tennis: Joe has been addicted to the Australian Open. It's been really fun to watch, especially when an Australian has been involved.

We have just a few days more of exploring Sydney, going for walks, visiting some of the many beautiful beaches that abound in this city, and watching the finals of the Australian Open before setting off to New Zealand.

Western OZ

2009-01-20T01:55:00.000-08:00

In Ozzieland, now. It is very hot and dry here: mid-summer. We spent the last week in Western Australia, which is the country's largest state. It is absolutely massive (more than 5 times as large as Texas), mostly desert-like outback, and its capital city, Perth, is the most isolated large city on Earth. It is close to nothing! We liked Perth. It reminded us of cities in California: palm trees, plenty of sun, cool at night, not very densely developed, many pedestrian malls and pretty parks. We have been having a hard time adjusting to Australian prices, especially after spending more than 3 months in Asia. We are finding the prices to be similar to those in NYC! Two beers in a no-name pub costs between $15-18 Australian, which is about $10-$12 U.S. Needless to say, we haven't visited many pubs! But we have visited some vineyards; Australia is chock full of em'.

After spending two days in Perth, we rented a car and headed south. The country was gorgeous and we spent our first night in a posh town in the best Western Australian wine region, called Margaret River. It was like the Napa of Western Oz. The owner of our hotel recommended we go to a place called Wino's down the road for a drink and dinner and we were waited on by an American. She was in Australia for a year, bar-tending at Wino's, and her boyfriend was working as a chef there. He had previously been a chef at the renowned Acqua restaurant in San Francisco, so we knew we were in for a treat. The coast from Perth down to Margaret River is absolutely gorgeous. The water is light, clear Carribean blue in the shallows and deep, Pacific blue in the breakers. And surfers and surfbreaks are everywhere, despite the fact that shark attacks on Australian surfers is on the rise.

From Margaret River, we drove south-east to the region around Pemberton, where we stayed for two nights. There are many National Parks in the area, which are home to Australia's biggest trees: giant eucalpytus species that reach more than 200 feet. We visited three national parks, took a couple of great walks, and Joe climbed some giant trees, which had been fitted with narrow foot pedestals up to the canopy, nearly 200 feet above us. I skipped that activity! (I got up to about 20 feet, looked down, examined my unreliable flip-flops, and retraced my steps). During a hike on the second day, on a trail where we saw no one for hours, we came across a big patch of red, guey, liquid-type stuff. And both of us freaked out and thought: blood! We had just seen a picture of a missing person (a backpacker from England) at the hostel we were staying and jumped to conclusions. We took pictures of "the scene," picked up giant sticks to be used as weapons and started to hot-foot it out of there. About 30 minutes later, we saw another red liquid patch on the trail and saw that it was sap, leaking from the giant trees. Overactive imaginations!

We returned our car in Perth and the next day got on a two day train ride through southern Western Australia, some of the most desolate country imaginable. The land is flat, there is sparse vegetation, and nearly no animal or human life for vast stretches. The sunsets and sunrises were amazing. The train stopped twice during the journey and at the first stop, we got out and wandered around in the mining town (we went to a karaoke bar with some fellow train passengers and they tore the place up- such good singers!) of Kalgoorlie. The second stop, Cook, was 500 further miles from Kalgoorlie (and Kalgoorlie was the closest town to it). It had a population of 4 people, and its main function is to service the trains that stop there. It was perhaps the hottest place I'd ever been, about 118 degrees at noon. And there were so many flies! It was mind-boggling to imagine living there- a stranger existence than perhaps any other I have ever witnessed.

And now we are in Adelaide, capital of the state of South Australia. It's a pretty city and feels more urban and established than Perth. There is wine-country and beaches close-by here, too, which we plan on hitting up in the next couple of days before heading to Melbourne.

As we leave Asia...

2009-01-11T22:37:00.001-08:00

We are sitting in the Singapore Airport now. Our flight to Australia leaves in 2 hours. We just spent our last days in Asia in this pristine, Asian city-state, staying with the Whites (friends of my parents'). Its a beautiful city, mixing some of the best aspects of Asia and Europe (like London in the Asian tropics).

We are wrapping up 3.5 months in Asia and about 6.5 months of traveling in all and have been having fun remembering and comparing the different places we have been.

During this time, we have visited 16 countries (we are including the U.S. here- is that cheating?), stayed in 70 different locations within those countries and each read more than 30 books.

Here are some of the highlights (and lowlights) of the places visited in Africa and Asia these last 6.5 months:

Most Physically Beautiful Country- South Africa

Most Physically Beautiful People- Senegalese (Wolof)

Most Spiritually Beautiful People (kindest, calmest, most peaceful)- Thai

Most Beautiful Cities – Cape Town, South Africa and Luang Prabang, Laos

Most Interesting (Fascinating is a better adjective) Country- India

Best Music- Mali

(Worst Music- Vietnam)

Best Bang for the Buck (good quality for lowest prices)- Vietnam

City We'd Most Like to Return to on a High-Dollar Budget for a Long Weekend- Hanoi, Vietnam

Best Beer- Angkor Beer, Cambodia

Best Wine- Shakalaka, South Africa

Best Airline- Thai Airways

Most Interesting Airport- Kuwait City

Top Food Experiences:
Sofitel Metropole, Hanoi (weekday buffet lunch- oh my God!)
Teej, Calcutta (Punjabi thali)
Swagath, Delhi (amazing, relatively upscale Northern Indian)
Alpine Sherpa Inn, Nagarkot, Nepal (sweet, family-owned, spicy Tibetan food with an incredible view)
Food Court Bazaar at the Night Market, Chiang Rai, Thailand- our unbeatable introduction to the Thai food court
Smokin' Pot and White Rose, Battambang, Cambodia- two neighboring, super high quality, low-price restaurants. Fish amok , spicy papaya salad and 50 different kinds of fruit shakes.
*Something, something (can't remember)* Street Food Restaurant, Hoi An, Vietnam- up-scale street food dishes in beautiful setting
Sri Avanda Bagwan, Penang, Malaysia- best Indian restaurant in the world!

Most Perfect food items:
momos- vegetarian dumplings served with curry dipping sauce throughout Nepal
deep-fried catfish with wasabit spring rolls- Highway 4 Restaurant, Hanoi
bright red chili hot sauce, served in a jar at waterfront restaurant in Les Almadies, Dakar, Senegal
pad thai at husband and wife sidewalk restaurant in Thewet (corner of Krung Kasem and Samsen Streets), Bangkok
curry mee- curry noodle soup with tofu, fresh herbs, red onion and chili available at sidewalk stalls in Penang, Malaysia
black pepper crabs- the sauce is everything and the crab are big at Chinese hawker stalls in Singapore

Best Hotel Experiences:
Relax Beach Resort- Ko Phi Phi, Thailand (best staff in the world!!!)
Zebrabar- just south of St. Louis, Senegal
Trung Tam II- Hanoi, Vietnam (most modern, least expensive room we stayed in- great staff)
Champagne Castle Resort – Drakensburg, South Africa (a splurge with an incredible view)
Cozy Cottage- Scarborough, South Africa (little cottage in a beautiful small town with gorgeous ocean sunsets)
Dream House, Udaipur, India ($6 room for an arabian nights type, ancient Indian room with stained glass windows looking out on the city)
Jungle Inn- Bukit Lawang (honeymoon suite in the jungle! monkeys on our private wrap-around porch)
Dorney, Oxshott, Surrey (Heather and Ian's house: great food, amazing liquor cabinet, wonderful company)

Orangutans and other Indonesian Adventures

2009-01-07T03:22:00.001-08:00

Going to the Indonesian island of Sumatra to see an orangutan rescue and rehabilitation center (so they can live in the wild) has long been on Joe's agenda of things we should do in Southeast Asia. It was an easy trip by ferry from Malaysia and we planned on just zipping over for a few days, going to the jungle to see the orangutans and heading back to Malaysia.
We did go to the jungle and saw many orangutans (mostly female, with their babies- so cute!) really, really close up (a little too close at times! they are huge animals! and will bite, if threatened). And we did stay in the amazing honeymoon suite (with a private top-floor, wraparound porch with views of the river, waterfall and jungle in all directions- for $35!) at the Jungle Inn in Bukit Lawang across from the national park where the orangutans live. It was all so fantastic! As we were settling up our hotel bill and leaving, I happened to look across the river to see an orangutan loping up the steps of the national park office, just to be chased off by the park ranger with a broom. Two minutes later, she was back. This happened several times and it was really fun to see man and our nearest animal relative interact like that.
Unfortunately, in order to get to the jungle in Bukit Lawang, we had to spend a night in the relatively dismal Indonesian city of Medan, before and after. Indonesia appears much poorer than other Southeast Asian countries we've visited. And Medan, the country's 3rd largest city, displays the characteristics of a crowded, polluted and difficult urban area. When we arrived back in Medan after the jungle, we had a really negative altercation with a hotel owner when we complained about the air-conditioner not working in our room and told him we wanted another room or we were going to leave. We yelled at him and he yelled at us, then he brandished a wrench at us and we took off, adrenaline pumping and feeling pretty down on Indonesia. Twelve hours later, at a much nicer hotel, I succumbed to a miserable and violent stomach illness- intestinal parasites! Giardia! I was incapacitated to the point of making us miss our ferry back to Malaysia, which meant getting stuck another night in Medan! One of the "best" parts about a visit to Medan is that there are mosques everywhere and there is a very loud, extensive call to prayer from these mosques 5 times a day- starting at 4:30 a.m.! It actually sounded like there was a loudspeaker right inside our room! Luckily, we got out of Medan this morning, and are now in Kuala Lumpur (the very comfortable and modernistic capital of Malaysia), holed up in a nice hotel, medicating and recovering until we head to Singapore on Friday.

Thai Christmas and a Rough Start in Malaysia

2008-12-29T22:01:00.000-08:00

We had a great Christmas-time, on the Southern, Thai islands of Phi Phi and Lanta. We went on a snorkeling trip on Christmas day! One of the elements of the snorkel trip was that we were given bread to throw into the fish, and then we swam among hundreds of them while they went on a bread-feeding-frenzy. It was pretty intense! But amazing. Our first night on Phi Phi was a bit of a disaster, as we were staying in the terrible "tourist village" of Ton Sai, the largest (and only) town on the island. It was filled with young partiers, the buildings and businesses were tacky and tourist-oriented and there was no beach close by!

Luckily, Joe trekked all over the island to find a better place for us to set up shop for the next few days, including Christmas. He found the Relax Beach Resort, which was the only thing on an isolated beach, accessible by boat or a very rough and tough trail from Ton Sai. This place was amazing! Simple, wooden bungalows, a great open air beach restaurant and bar, a very international clientele, beach chairs and hammocks spread out along the beach and kayaks and snorkel gear for rent...The ultimate highlight of this place was the staff, however. They were amazing: palpably happy folks, who were so helpful, chatty, kind and smiley. They called Janie "Mama." They prepared a Christmas banquet and party for all of us Western guests, and it was really amazing. We drank Mai Tais out of pineapples on the beach with Christmas dinner.

The day after Christmas, we went by boat to Ko Lanta. At first, it just didn't seem to compare to the Relax Beach Resort but then the sun came out, and it set over the water (the beach was west-facing, while on Phi Phi it was east-facing, so no sunset), the hotel staff grew on us (Thais are awesome!) and we just chilled on the beach, read books, went swimming and walked on the beach to neighboring restaurants and bars at night.

Joe and I said goodbye to Janie (who had more than 48 hours of travel ahead of her to get back to Sanibel- ouch!) and set out for Malaysia. We left Thailand (so sad! we love it there!) in Satun, boarded a boat, and an hour later landed on the island of Langkawi in Malaysia (we are in a land of islands, here!). Langkawi was a complete disaster! We got in a cab with 3 other tourists and asked the cab driver to bring us to the beach where there a lot of hotels. When we got there, we found tourists, wandering around with their luggage, none of them finding a place to stay. All of the hotels from the five-star places to the hostels were booked solid. It is Malaysian school holidays and every single family it seems, went to Langkawi and took all the hotel rooms! Us five tourists finally ended up in the worst room in Southeast Asia, a dirty, flea bag-ridden, dorm room that we shared and Joe and I got up the next morning determined to get the hell out of Langkawi. Which we did- yay!

We are now on the island of Penang, in the city of Georgetown, where we will spend the next few nights, including New Year's, before going to Indonesia for a few days to an orangutan conservation park. Penang (and all of Malaysia, really) is amazingly diverse. The government's tourist slogan is Malaysia: Truly Asia. And Malaysia does embody much of Asia, with a significant population of Chinese and Indians, who have lived here for generations. So, there is great food here! And architectural and religious and cultural diversity. The British were also here for hundreds of years, so there is a lot of English spoken and many other remnants of its colonial history. We are staying in an old Chinese hotel, with big rooms, tile floor, wooden slatted window (no screens) and a wonderful, aging, Chinese staff. Last night, we went to a strange traveler hotel around the corner from ours, where there was a live band made up of both Westerners and Malays, and a really diverse group of people, both travelers and locals, drinking and dancing outside. Joe said he thought it reminded of him of "old-school traveling." An eclectic, random scene: the travelers were not very young or cute or cool, they were not traveling in big groups and there were lots of characters among them...We were two of this crew!

Merry Christmas from Thailand!

2008-12-19T21:24:00.000-08:00

Joe's mom arrived in Bangkok last night. We are about to head out and show here the few sites we know and enjoy...Tomorrow, we get on an over-night (got to show Janie what long-term, budget traveling is all about), VIP (but it's Christmas, so we'll go in style! Thai VIP busses are truly luxurious!) bus to the south of Thailand, where we will spend several nights on the beach resort islands of Ko Phi Phi and Ko Lanta.

I can't imagine a better way for me to "forget" that I am spending Christmas away from home and my family than spending it on a sunny, Thai beach. We will be thinking of you, and sending our love northwards, however! Happy Holidays from Erica and Joe!

We are in Food Court Heaven!

2008-12-15T12:00:00.000-08:00

You know those food courts in the mall? Bad pizza, not the freshest sushi, maybe some okay sandwiches, but nothing that makes you feel healthy or excited about eating? Now imagine all of the food stalls being varied selections of Thai and other Southeast Asian delicacies:

green papaya salad with peanuts, carrots, fish sauce, limes and chile
spicy and sour tom yum soups

thai-style barbecue: vegetables and fish or meet or tofu on skewer, in spicy red asian-spiced barbecue sauce

curry sauces with and without coconut milk over vegetables, and meat or seafood

vegetables of all kinds, steamed, sauteed, grilled in garlic, chili, oil or fish sauce (our new favorite is stir fried morning glory! oh my god! the best vegetable in the world!)

the most incredibly fresh and varied fruit juices and shakes (with yogurt or milk): strawberry, watermelon, pineapple, banana, passion fruit or a mixture of all fruits

quick fried vegetables and shrimp with various dipping sauces

stir-fried noodles with bean sprouts, peanuts, eggs, tamarind sauce and chili

noodle soups with fish or meat and vegetables and spices

sushi

spring rolls, either deep fried, or entirely "fresh" (my favorite- no oil! just veggies and noodles wrapped in rice paper)

We have arrived back in Thailand and are indulging ourselves in food court experiences. Aside from the incredible variety of amazing food, the other best feature of Thai food courts is that it is very, very cheap to eat at them. Maybe just $5-8 dollars for 3-5 small dishes and drinks. Oh yeah, and because Thailand is "the future" (Thailand is the most futuristic and modern bit of Asia we have seen. And when I say modern, I have never seen streets, public transportation, malls, plazas as modern as parts of Bangkok. Not in the U.S. or Europe or Canada), these food courts are incredibly clean and comfortable. Hundreds of chairs, set around tables on tiles in an outdoor or indoor market. Fancy lighting, plants, nice public bathrooms, and music (some of it live, on the stage at the end of the food court, and oh so entertaining! the other night there was a woman lip synching on stage in a gorgeous dress!). We've had two nights back in Thailand and have visited two glorious food courts, and I have mapped out visits to at least 3-4 more, as we make our way south to Bangkok and the southern Thai islands, where we will spend Christmas with Joe's mom. I hope she's excited about food courts as we are!

Boat Ride up the Mekong

2008-12-13T22:36:00.000-08:00

Rather than braving more tortuous, windy bus rides through Laos, we decided to take a two day boat ride from Luang Prabang in Laos, to the Thai border at Chien Khong. The boat started at 8:30 in the morning both days and docked in small Laotian towns after 6, when it was too dark to keep going safely. There were basic guest houses and food options (and Beerlao!) in the towns where we spent our nights. The boats were long (maybe 60 feet?), narrow (maybe 10 feet?), wooden affairs. It is hard to describe them but they had a very Asian feel.

There were various, rather uncomfortable seating options on board, but by the beginning of the second day, we had re-arranged all the benches and were lying about on the floor, playing cards and sharing food with other travelers. We had a good crew of about 15 Western travelers on the boat, and about as many Lao folks. Our "clique" of travelers for those 2 days consisted of a South African couple who had been traveling for nearly a year, are about to return home and got engaged during the time that we knew them, a Canadian guy traveling alone, who plans on being away from home for a year, and is pretty much going to be traveling along our planned route through Asia and Australia/New Zealand, and a couple who had met traveling in Asia a couple of months ago: a girl from New Zealand and boy from Sweden. Our clique styaed up later than anyone else in those small Lao towns, talking about Asian and other travel experiences, telling each other about our "real" lives back home, and laughing a lot over Beerlaos. When we got to Thailand, we exchanged emails and went our separate ways, but I imagine we will see at least a few of them in different places, in the future.

The scenery along the Mekong was gorgeous. It is a very wide (maybe a mile at different places) and powerful river, with huge boulders and rock islands cropping out of it, as it is the dry season now. During the wet season, the river is even much wider and deeper. There are green, lush, hills and rocky mountains on either side of the river, that occasionally made us think of the Pacific Northwest and at other times of some tropical place in Central America. And for much of the hundreds of kilometers along one of the most important rivers in Asia that we traveled, we saw no one and nothing. No towns, no cities, no place to stop...No farms or factories or roads. Just hills and greenery. Here and there, we would see people walking along the river, with bundles on their heads or backs, or a small village of fisherman and farmers living in wood shacks. When there was a more substantial town, we would usually stop at it, and deliver people or bags of rice, sugar or other foodstuffs, and/or make collections of the same. Our mode of transport (river boat) was the only way to get people and goods to most of these places. On our last evening, as the sunset over the hills on the Thai side of the river, I was listening to our Ipod and thinking about all the people and places that the music I love makes me think of, and feeling so incredibly full of wonder at the world and love and gratitude for my life. A fleeting feeling, but a true one. : )

The Most Beautiful City in Asia

2008-12-10T03:03:00.000-08:00

On the night we arrived in Luang Prabang, Laos, I saw a beautiful, old-style, Asian house (dark teak trim, pointed roof) with a sign outside saying that the German Consulate in Bangkok had built that house in homage to the most beautiful city in Asia...And it is truly beautiful here. Two rivers converge in this town: the Mekong and the Nam Kheon (spelling?). There are wats (Buddhist temples with gold and red trim) everywhere, parks to sit in, huge towering palm trees, monks in brigh orange garb, and beautifully restored colonial French-style and Asian architecture.

Laos has been "discovered" by the international tourist in the past 10 years or so, and Luang Prabang is definitely on the tourist trail. It is crawling with tourists and there are so many hotels, cafes, bars, tour companies and book stores catering to the international tourist...We are really enjoying sunny, lazy days here, and running into (and drinking Beerlaos with) travelers we have met throughout the region. We have picked up some good books, taken nice walks, and are resting before beginning on a reportedly rough, two-day boat trip to Thailand in a couple of days.

Prior to coming to Luang Prabang, we made a brief stopover in a hellishly over-touristed town called Vang Vieng, which had been over-run with young, budget travelers and the very un-Laotian enterprises catering them (restaurants that played endless episodes of Friends and the Simpsons and bars blaring crappy dance music). Vang Vieng is in an incredible setting, and we spent one day tubing down the river there, along with tens of way young tourists from Australia and Britain. It was actually quite fun. There were bars set up along the way, and people would paddle over to them in their tubes, stop for a beer or a bucket of whiskey and coke and paddle on down the river. A purely hedonistic scene that screamed of dangers to us old folks in our thirties! Can you imagine the liability of such an activity, if it were on offer to college students on spring break in Daytona or Myrtle Beach? Ummm...yeah, Vang Vieng made us feel OLD!

In Lao...

2008-12-03T20:57:00.000-08:00

Arrived in Lao yesterday, crossing from Vietnam into Lao at the Namphon border in the early morning hours. The border was at a high elevation and it was freezing! Not literally, but probably in the low 40s or so, which was a shock to our systems. The bus ride was seemingly never-ending, nearly 24 hours from Hanoi to Vientiane. There was a pretty diverse group of tourists on the bus, from just about every Western country and Thailand (poor Thais have few other ways of returning home than by road these days). We made many stops, sometimes in the middle of nowhere, and always without warning or explanation, as the bus driver and his helpers spoke no English. So, we rarely knew what was happening: how to get our passports stamped or when we were stopping again for food or a bathroom break. Joe and I kind of kept it together, remembering other brutally long bus-rides we'd been on the past (Joe's most memorable was a 52 hour bus-ride from Brazil to Bolivia, when he was relegated to a urine-soaked seat )...But that didn't help so much, because we're older now, less patient and way less interested in roughing it. ; ) To make matters worse, we were forced to watch Vietnamese music videos/movies for hours and hours on the bus (some we watched more than once) and the music is very grating! Nasally and off-key and high-pitch. Joe says he can't think of anything less likely to have cross-cultural appeal than Vietnamese music. He said other terrible things, too, but I won't share them. He didn't get off the bus in the middle of Lao, as he threatened.

Lao is much less developed than Vietnam. There is a lot more wide open space, way fewer people, and it is hot and dry here, now. The land appears inhospitable, with lots of scrub and not much under cultivation, which is surprising in South East Asia, where almost everywhere else is wet and lush and green. Lao is also very mountainous. It is land-locked. The capital maybe be one of the smallest, world capitals anywhere: just 200,000 people. And it is super chill here. Not a lot of noise or traffic. Easy to walk around. And really pleasant temperatures. We treated ourselves to a French dinner last night (lots of French and other international food here in Vientiane), in hopes of putting our 24-hour bus ordeal behind us. There are gold and red-painted temples with pretty complexes scattered throughout town and the Mekong River runs right through the city, creating the border with Thailand. We hope to spend the next two weeks here, before returning to Bangkok (if all is well there) and meeting up with Joe's mom for Christmas.

Sunny Boat Days in Vietnam

2008-11-30T00:28:00.000-08:00

We spent (un-) Thanskgiving weekend on a boat in Halong Bay. I guess the rain gods decided we'd seen enough typhoon action since being in Vietnam, because our days out there were absolutely gorgeous. We booked a 2 day, one night boat excursion with our hotel on Cat Ba Island (the only inhabited island in Halong Bay), got a shockingly good deal on the price, and were skeptical that the whole experience might be a complete sh*t show, but no! On the first day, we shared our boat with a Dutch couple, a French couple, and two Vietnamese, male crew members (the driver and the cook, but they both did everything around the boat and neither spoke any English). At the end of the day, of cruising around the Bay, and making stops to walk around in caves and go kayaking, we dropped off the other tourists and Joe and I spent that night and the next day in close quarters with our Vietnamese boat dudes. It was great! They ordered us around, (i.e. using sign language to tell us when to go swimming, when to go kayaking and where, to come inside and eat or have tea, etc) served us incredible seafood and otherwise, left us alone, on roof of the boat, where there were two comfortable couches, and incredible sunshine and gorgeous sea-green water and islands as far as we could see.
So many Vietnamese are water people. They live in floating houses, out there in Halong Bay, and in other bodies of water, throughout the country. These people get everywhere by boat. They fish. They have dogs and other pets at their floating houses. I feel bad that the animals don't get to run around much. Then again, dog is eaten for dinner here, sometimes, so maybe it's not so bad to be a water-bound dog, considering the alternatives. It got cold, at night, on Halong Bay. And the houses that people live in are made of thin wood and the wind whips through the karsts at night, and it felt like we were at the end of the earth! But there were tons of Vietnamese, living their lives out there on the water. The stars were amazingly bright in the incredibly dark sky. The sea water in the Bay had a very high level of salinity. Joe cut himself a few times, getting in and out of the boat, because his skin was so dry from the salt. But his cuts healed quickly, because the salt water scoured everything clean. And our hair stuck up like we had salty dread locks. Especially Joe's curls.
We also spent two nights on Cat Ba Island where we watched great sunsets from the balcony of our hotel and walked to the beach. Now, we are back in Hanoi, a city we really, really enjoy, especially now that it has stopped raining. It is a fun city to walk around in. Nice parks and outdoor cafes with numerous places to sit and watch the city life.
In two days, we take a monster-long bus ride to Laos. Our first stop is Vientiane, the capital. We have heard really good things about that city and country from other travelers. Colorful and calm and friendly and very Buddhist. We will spend a couple of weeks in Laos before returning to Bangkok to meet Janie, Joe's mom, who is flying in to spend Christmas with us. That is, if the airport is open again! The political situation in Thailand (mostly, just Bangkok) sounds pretty shaky, to say the least, right now.

Still Raining in Vietnam

2008-11-21T19:17:00.000-08:00

We are making our way north, along the coast of Vietnam...Each new place we arrive,there is heavy rain just like in the place we left behind! Remember the scene in "Forrest Gump," when Forrest is fighting in Vietnam and the rains start? "And it rained, and it rained, and it rained...Big old fat rain, etc..." That is really how it rains here. We were considering heading east, into Laos, where the weather reports are dry and sunny, but we both had our hearts set on going to Halong Bay, which is on the northern coast of Vietnam, near the border of China. Halong Bay is probably the place in Vietnam most renowned for its physical beauty. Thousands of uninhabited islands, emerald waters, and limestone cliffs (called karsts) rising up out of the water. Featured prominently in the movie "Indochine," which we loved and highly recommend.
On a happier note, we found an internet cafe with a good enough internet connection for Joe to do some work, in Danang, where we holed up for a few days. Danang was an interesting stop because it is off the tourist trail. Just a big, non-descript, Vietnamese city, where we walk down the street and people stop us and call to us, not to sell us things, but just because we are a strange sight. The amount of times we have been asked by a Vietnamese person where we are from is innumerable. And people always smile when we tell them. They do not seem to harbor resentment or hatred towards the US for the war our countries fought against each other. Instead, they tell us they have a friend who lives in the US or a family member who moved to California...Or, they want to talk about Obama. A guy asked us yesterday, in a very strong accent, if we liked the "white-skinned President or the dark-skinned President more better?"
Now in the city of Hue, which is on the tourist circuit, and has good, traveler restaurants (i.e. menus in English!) and bars and "things to see and buy." It is not raining, so we will probably head out to walk around the old city soon, before getting on a night bus tonight for Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, which is supposed to have great food and architecture, both influenced heavily by its time as French colony. Joe has his heart set on eating at a recommended French-Vietnamese fusion restaurant, because of a great restaurant we used to go to when we lived in Berkeley, where the Vietnamese chef had been trained in Paris...

Vietnam Vacation

2008-11-16T18:42:00.000-08:00

Our introduction to Vietnam occurred in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), which is the largest city in the country and was the capital of Southern Vietnam before reunification. Arriving from Cambodia's capital, Phnomh Penh, we found HCMC to be much more developed, overwhelming, crowded and more modern. Walking across the street was a real challenge, and Joe had to confidently take my hand and lead me across each, big, 4 lane road, teeming with motos (mopeds are the transportation of choice throughout the region, it seems). We would inch our way out, hoping the motos would swerve around us - and they did, they do, that is how these cities work.
We ate great food in HCMC and found comfortable cafes with wi-fi, which was a nice treat. We also went to the War Remnants Museum, which documents, through photographs, news articles and quotations, the work of journalists and politicians, the Vietnam War. As an American, I felt compelled to go, but it was very, very difficult. At the entrance of the first room that a visitor to the museum walks into, is a quote from Robert McNamara, the U.S. Secretary of defence during the escalation of the war, who said in no uncertain terms, that in looking back at the war, it was all a mistake, a terrible mistake. The photos spoke a million words: of death and destruction, lasting these 30 years after the end of the war. Babies are still being born with deformities (from the extensive use of chemical weapons) and people blown apart by landmines in Vietnam. I felt terrible to think that humans have not learned, that we are still at war with each other, in so many locations across the globe.
On a much brighter note, we met up with a friend of a friend of Joe's who had gone to Northwestern with him and has been living in Ho Chi Minh City for the past 7 years, with her Vietnamese-American husband. They are building a new house in the city, and her husband recently opened a financial services firm there. She is working on establishing a foundation that would provide technical assistance to Vietnamese non-profits. We were picked up in a Lexus by Joe's friend and driven by her Vietnamese drive to the Central market, where we ate a typical Vietnamese breakfast. It was tasty and strange, consisting of broken, deep friend rice and pounded rice paper, with fish sauce, and ordered without meat of all kinds for me, in Vietnamese, which was fun! Being a vege/pescatarian in this country is really, really challenging. Even vegetables are cooked with pork and beef bits! I see tofu for sale in the markets, but never seem to find it on menus...On the subject of food, I was slightly disillusioned with the food we were finding and eating for our first several days in Vietnam. Before arriving here, I had thought that Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese and Mexican were the highest-ranking food genres in my world and this trip to Southeast Asia was going to serve as an ultimate test as to whether Vietnamese or Thai was better, in my book. For the first several days here, I would say that Thai food was blowing Vietnamese food away, but we have had some really amazing food the further north into Vietnam we have travelled and the playing field is evening out somewhat.
From Ho Chi Minh City, we headed north up the coast to Nha Trang. Tourism is heavily concentrated in a few locations in Vietnam. It seems that getting "off the beaten path" is really difficult. The guide books, tour companies, and transportation options are limited: there are about 5-10 destinations that tourists are shunted towards and while these so far seem like good places to visit, they are touristy, and I have to wonder what the next city up the coast, that no tourist busses stop at and none of the guidbooks talk about, is like. We got to Nha Trang at the tale end of a cyclone had pushed through the area and it rained intensely and heavily for about 36 hours while we were there. Joe had previously mentioned that he would like to visit India during the monsoon season, to see what the heavy rains were really like. After our days in Nha Trang, he had decided that really didn't sound like much fun, after all. Our last day there, the weather cleared, and we had a great time walking around the town and sitting on the beach.
Now, we are in Hoi An, a small city on a river, with ancient roots. The old town is a UNESCO world heritage site, and the architecture is old, Chinese/Japanese in style. There are a lot of tourists here, so there are many good places to eat and drink (cheapest beers of the trip so far! 25 cents! this makes Joe very happy). This town is renowned for its tailor shops. Many tourists come here and have clothes and shoes made to order. There are all kinds of shops and designs and materials to choose from. I walked by a store yesterday where I liked the dresses on the manequins, I went inside, had my measurements taken, picked out different colors and patterns of material and will go back today and collect two custom-made dresses, for which I paid $25! Joe was busy drinking 25 cent beers while I shopped, and we made friends of some Dutch, Australian, and Israeli travelers over cheap beers last night...

Don't eat cold chicken or fish

2008-11-08T01:14:00.000-08:00

That's our new mantra. It sounds, perhaps, self-evident. It's probably not a bad thing to keep in mind wherever you may be, but we can empirically confirm now, that it is indeed a bad idea in Bamako, Mali, and now somewhere between Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

After making it through 3 healthy weeks in India, I figured we were due for some sort of reckoning at some point, but somehow didn't think it would come in SE Asia, but it has. Erica and I have become incredibly familiar with our cable selection in our little guesthouse room, as we've been spending some solid quality time inside for the past few days. We are blaming it on a the lunch we had mid-trip between Siem Reap and Phnom Penh. I had a lukewarm Chicken curry and Erica had a not so warm fish soup. It is oddly similar to our undoing in West Africa as well, where she had lukewarm grilled fish, and I lukewarm grilled chicken. We have self-medicated now, however, and are sincerely on the mend, which is a wonderful thing. We'll see if we can make some better lunch decisions moving forward.

Tomorrow is the Cambodian independence day, which should be relatively exciting here in the capital, and then we are planning on going to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.

Cambodia: Confusion, Temples, Elections

2008-11-04T05:40:00.000-08:00

Arrived in Cambodia on Halloween, by way of a very un-used, backwater border post with Thailand, called Psar Pruhm. We were the only non- Thai/Cambodians at the border crossing and we had to rouse the Cambodian visa official from a nap in his hammock to issue us a visa. From that point forward, communication got very difficult. In the touristy parts of Thailand, English is spoken and written a lot. In Psar Pruhm, there were few signs in a non-Cambodian alphabet and NO ONE spoke English. We struck out, several times, when attempting to find out about transportation options to the city, Battambang, about four hours away, that was our first over-night destination in Cambodia. People just kept telling us "take taxi." When we asked about busses (we're on a budget!), we received blank stares. At the first intermediate-sized town we visited, one taxi driver pulled up to another taxi driver on the dirt road (all roads in this part of Cambodia are dirt- and in very bumpy shape!)and tried to hand us off for the next portion of our trip. Again, we tried to ask about busses or a bus station. Nothing. Finally, Joe asked if we could be taken to the hotel in town, which was in our guide book; we hoped someone there would speak English or know how we could get a bus to Battambang. The taxi drivers got very excited when they understood we wanted to go to the hotel- it was the first thing they understood us say at all! We pulled up to the hotel and the proprietess, who spoke some English, offered to help us communicate...She confirmed that the only way to get to Battambang was by taxi, the road was too bad for busses, and she walked us out to the street to find a taxi: it was the one and only taxi in town, who we had just had drop us off at the hotel 20 minutes ago! Confusion all around...Everyone laughed and we got in the taxi for a 4-hour ride to Battambang (which was a great introduction to Cambodia: a chill town on a pretty river, with wonderful food, friendly people, etc).
From Battambang, we took a 7 hour boat ride with 30 other tourists to the major tourist destination of Siem Reap, where the ancient temples of Angkor Wat (sometimes referred to as the 8th Wonder of the World, but I wonder how many other places are called that, too?) are located. The boat ride was amazing! Least of all because it started at 7 a.m. and a friendly tourist from England who we had met the night before wanted to start drinking his good birthday bottle of whiskey with Joe and I and others- at 7 a.m. It was a really fun day, involved a 2nd bottle of local (horrible) alcohol purchased en route before 9 a.m. and great scenery: bright green rice paddies, wide open skies, and wooden houses, and villages built on stilts, populated by fishermen/women, who basically live on water...
Angkor Wat is amazing, even though I am sort of "templed out" (so many temples here in Asia!). Spread out over 20 miles, and built by Khmer (the ethnicity of Cambodia) rulers from the 11-14th centuries, are tens and tens of temples, both Buddhist and Hindu. The surroundings are lush, jungly, wet, and the temples are in various states of ruin or restoration...We rented bicycles and biked all over, getting there (with 100s of other tourists) in time for sunrise at the major temple complex: Angkor Wat. I enjoyed biking through the exotic landscape as much as actually getting off our bikes and walking into and around the different temples, but I didn't tell Joe that - turns out he's a temple freak and can't get enough of this ancient, religious architecture!
We are really enjoying our time here. The people are great and friendly, the scenery is superb, and we have enjoyed every meal we've eaten (one highlight was when we went to a casual restaurant near our guest house in Siem Reap, where we were the only foreigners and there was no menu and almost no English spoken. All the staff gathered around us and used their combined efforts to help us order one beef and one vegetable rice and they all laughed hysterically when we had been presented with our food and utensils, which included different empty bowls, and sauces, chillies, a huge array of raw vegetables on ice, a pot of rice and we began trying different things and putting them in our bowls; we were obviously doing something VERY wrong and funny but we had no idea what it was), and the scenery is superb. But Cambodia has a very, very painful recent history. Hundreds of thousands of Cambodians were killed during and right after the U.S. war with Vietnam, when the brutal Khmer Rouge took power here. The country lost more than 10% of its population and it is still recovering, obviously.
It is election day morning in the U.S. and I am in a high state of excitement and anticipation, here in Phnomh Penh (the capital of Cambodia). I want to wake up tomorrow at a.m. our time (6 p.m. Eastern time) and begin to watch the election coverage, before meeting up at a Democrats Abroad party here...

On a Tropical Thai Island....

2008-10-30T02:08:00.000-07:00

Arrived in Bangkok two days ago after a middle of the night flight from Kolkata. We were feeling sad to leave India, because we don't know if we will ever be back and really, really enjoyed our time there. It is such a dynamic, real, intriguing, and complicated country. We just saw a small part of it and feel really lucky to have seen what we did and have some small understanding for what will soon be the world's most populated country (approximately one in 6 people on the globe are Indian)...

I had been to Thailand once before, with my friend Kelly, for a couple of weeks in 2001. It seems very changed since then...or maybe it is just me that is very changed? Anyway, Bangkok is a really, modern-looking, futuristic city these days. It has new, fancy, public transportation lines with televisions on the trains and announcements in English. We went to the commercial, center of Siam Square in Bangkok and wandered around giant,glittering, all-white malls filled with the most exclusive of Western and Asian shops of the kind you think might be in Tokyo. And we ate great street food and drank beers sitting at plastic tables and chairs on street corners...Many, many people visit Bangkok for sex tourism purposes and we stayed in a part of the city where a lot of these tourists and businesses were located: awful and depressing.

After one day in Bangkok, we took off for the island of Koh Chang, near the Cambodian border in the Gulf of Thailand. It is a wet (nearly 100% humidity), very green, lush island that is mostly (not very well protected) national park, with a mountainous interior. Joe has never been to Southeast Asia or anywhere in Asia prior to this trip and he said yesterday that "Thailand is like travel for dummies." It is really easy to get around here. The language and alphabet are unintelligible and English is not widely spoken aside from a few words, but the tourist infrastructure is very well established and comfortable. Thailand receives more than 3 times the amount of international tourists that India does, though it is less than 1/10th as large a country.

We leave for Cambodia in the next couple of days. We have one stop before going to Siem Reap to see the ruins of Angkor Wat. I would like to get to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, by November 5th to watch the elections results with a group of Democrats Abroad there who are planning an elections-viewing party at a hotel there. Go OBAMA!!!!

Strikes, Road Closures and Return to India

2008-10-23T23:20:00.000-07:00

Wrapping up our time on the Indian Subcontinent now. We leave for Thailand on October 28th. We had a great time in Nepal and were happy to return to India last night. We had a long travel day to arrive in Darjeeling, India last night. We woke up to beautifu views of the surrounding highlands and the world's 3rd highest mountain, Kanchenjunga, on the border of India and Nepal this morning. While Darjeeling is similarly physically beautiful like neighboring Nepal, it has a chilled out tourist atmosphere (unlike the busloads of tourists we ran into everywhere in Nepal)! It is a remarkably clean and aesthetically pleasing Indian city (which can be quite overcrowded, polluted, lots of traffic, etc).

We were meant to arrive in Darjeeling the day before yesterday but got "stuck" at a beautiful place in Nepal, near the Tibet border...It was called the "Last Resort" and was owned by an Aussie and a Kiwi. They specialize in bungy jumping (something I would never do in a million years), but also do canyoning and rafting. Joe went canyoning one day (this is just mainly rapelling down a valley wall into the river below), but I just chilled out around the resort and joined Joe and a horribly grueling, all uphill 4 hour hike one day. I am still sore! On the day we were supposed to leave, the manager of the resort let us know that there was a "strike" on the road to Kathmandu...Nepal is known for such disruptions; basically, when people are aggrieved about any sort of social or political issue, they set up barricades on the roads and don't permit traffic through for sometimes days and weeks on end. So, we had no idea when the road would open again. We had to delay our flight back to India and hang out until the following day when the very, scary, mountain road with no guardrails and sheer drops down, down, down opened again and we could get out- yay!

We've met a lot of interesting travelers in the last few days, in Nepal and India. The one that tought us the most was a Nepali we met at the Last Resort who had been living in the U.S. for the last 10 years, after attending college and graduate school there. He now works for a South Asian-focused non-profit out of Madison, Wisconsin. We talked to him for hours about Nepali history, politics, culture and religion (including the caste system- so fascinating! and very much a part of everyday life) its relationship with India, etc.

Getting on a night train to Calcutta tonight. Our last train trip and destination in India. There are some unique things we have seen here on the Sub-Continent that we have never seen anywhere else before, we've been making a list in our heads the last few weeks...

Things We've Never Seen Outside of India (and Nepal)

1. Urban Monkeys (Yup, in cities of even 10 million people, multitudes of monkeys make the buildings and parks and temples their homes)
2. Urban Cows (They block the roads, the bridges, you can find them in crowds of hundreds of people- they are sacred here and accepted as part of the urban fabric)
3. Bicycle Rick-shaws (Apparently in Calcutta, where we go next, there are still rickshaws pulled by people on foot!)
4. Hawking (People clear their throats and noses and spit at the most amazing of decibels, all day long, men, women, children- everyone!)
5. Drivers (The best drivers on the planet! The things they do! The way everyone shares the road, weaves around each other, merging together in ways no Western driver ever could, passing huge trucks on mountain roads with guard rails, etc!)
6. Preponderance of Electrical Switches (I need to ask an Indian about this. Every hotel room we have stayed in has a row of at least 6 to sometimes 20 electrical switches - often all in a row. It is a major guessing game to figure out what, if anything, they connect to. I have often pressed a switch, unknowingly, that rings the front desk who then calls us up and I have to tell them in very basic English that "no", I do not need anything right now)
7. Hindu Temples and Stupas (They are everywhere: in the most unlikely and inconvenient of places. Giant, stone temples, on top of hills hours and hours from any road. a Stupa is a kind of pagoda-like Buddhist temple that can be of any size from 1 foot to 300 feet around and is our new favorite word: Stupa!)

Kathmandu and Around

2008-10-17T23:27:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Kathmandu 5 days ago after about 10 days in Rajasthan (state) in India and returning to Delhi for a couple of days before flying here. We had originally planned on traveling overland from India, by way of Varanasi, to Kathmandu but when we went to buy our train ticket, we struck out entirely. Trains from Rajasthan to Varanasi were booked solid for weeks. A disappointment. But we had been lucky, as we have met other tourists traveling in India who had booked their train tickets months in advance, from their home countries, in order to get where they wanted to go. We, on the other hand, were lucky in that we bought tickets the day of or the day before and didn't have any problems until we tried to go to Varanasi. Train travel in India is great! Very comfortable and easy and inexpensive- a great way to see the country. They even serve good food in the first class cars...India, overall, is a relatively easy place in wich to travel. People speak English widely (though there are daily frustrations and miscommunications about nearly everything). Even Delhi, which originally seemed charmless, hot and hectic, has really grown on us by the time we returned to it. We had some great interactions with Delhi-ites; cab drivers, hotel staff, people in restaurants, etc, were funny and kind and curious about us. Great food, nice parks, and temples and monuments (truthfully, though, we are getting a little "templed" out; these ornately carved, gold or marble-topped 700 year old buddhist or hindu temple in a lovely setting? we've seen too many of them!). And the hawking (people trying to sell things and services) is not nearly what we had anticipated from people who had traveled in India before. Another wonderful thing about India: there are many tourists and tourist sites, but us foreigners are a drop in the bucket compared to Indians. There are a billion people, and they like to visit the tourist sites, too. We are always outnumbered, enormously, wherever we go, by Indians and Indian tourists. Refreshing. And unlike Nepal, which I will get to next...
Nepal is gorgeous. The Himalayas and green hills and mountains and valleys. They grow everything here. It is lush and pleasant and sunny but cool at night. Great for sitting outside and walking around- which we have been doing a lot of! We spent the last 2 days in Nagargot, which is on a ridge about 30 km outside of Kathmandu. From the top of our hotel (on the 5th story was a little lookout tower), we could see a huge swath of the Himalayas, when they were not covered in clouds. They are powerful looking and enormous, breath-taking. Yesterday,we walked from Nagarkot, along a ridge and down into the valley almost back to Kathmandu. We walked along small paths, through towns and fields and temples. We walked by people bathing their children, washing their clothes, harvesting rice and millet, enjoying the view from their porches and lookouts, and everyone, everyone smiled at us and greeted us with "namaste". The children and the dogs accompanied us on our walks. This was a real highlight of our time here. The downside is that Kathmandu, particularly the section called Thamel, is a tourist ghetto! There are so many businesses catering to tourists. All the signs are in English and almost the only Nepalis around are those employed by those businesses. Nepal is a poor country (but poverty looks very different here than it did in Africa, for example. Clean, running water, a gorgeous natural environment, decent roads, electricity and larger houses and more complex buildings are things which make it different. It reminds us somewhat of mountainous countries in the Americas, like Guatemala and Bolivia: ancient and complex societies in beautiful surroundings). People here generally cannot afford the food and services that us tourists demand by the thousands and thousands each year. We feel conflicted about our role in this beast that is global tourism.
One more highlight about Nepal: food!!! Who knew? We are finding it spicier than Indian food (which is a plus for us) and a really wonderful combination of Chinese and Indian spices. We have been loving the Tibetan/Newari soups: hearty, vegetarian, with dumplings, noodles, beans, fresh veggies, chillies, ginger, garlic, etc. And momos: little dumplings with Indian-flavored veggies inside and a great, spicy, Indian-style dipping sauce. Yay!

Pushkar and more...

2008-10-06T02:40:00.000-07:00

Erica and I are sitting in a little internet cafe in Pushkar, India at the moment. Apparently, there are 5000 hindu temples in a town with a population of 14,000 people. All the buildings are huddled around a smallish lake which was created by damning a river. It's pretty touristy, with much of the main drag feeling a bit like Haight Ashbury, but you can certainly see the draw once here. We're on a day trip from Ajmer and heading to Udaipur tomorrow...

Our short time here has been one of the most thought provoking of any visits I've made. There are constantly images and views which jolt me : today locking eyes for a moment with an old woman wearing an impossibly bright pink shawl over her head and a huge gold hoop through her nose. walking behind a cow which appeared to be dancing (trotting?) through a tight bazaar at night just blocks from the Taj Mahal while music played at ear splitting level. while coming home (from the "Monkey Temple") in a rickshaw in Jaipur, we passed a line of men who were all lighting candles with a water fountain behind them at dusk, all wearing amazingly bright white clothing. I wish I had the energy to try to capture most of them in words to help remember them for later. I wonder if evenutally one gets desensitized to such sights. I can't imagine it.

Racing through the streets, especially at night, in a rickshaw can be easily listed as one of my favorite activities at this point. It's a great way to see a great deal at a relatively rapid pace (when you aren't stuck in gridlock with diesel fumes blowing your hair back), with the always exciting addition of slight to major chance of bodily harm. I love the way traffic moves in this country. It appears chaotic at first, but it is an amazing dance (to me, I think Erica is less impressed) which results in a tremendous number of vehicles getting where they are going much faster than I could've imagined. On more than a few ocassions now when we've taken a rickshaw to a temple or tomb or reallyoldbuilding of some kind, I've found the ride to or from to be almost or definitely better than the sight itself.

So far we've been lucky and managed to stay healthy. As Erica noted today, at this point in Senegal, we'd both been sick, healthy, and then sick again. Given what we'd heard for the past however many years about travel here, I think this is something to be very happy about.

Yesterday we took our first non-tourist class or regular class train ride. Pretty mellow overall, but I'm glad it was only 2.5 hours. I wish I could speak even a lick of Hindi as the only conversations I could have were largely like charades. I would act out what I was trying to say and then my luggage rack mate would answer in english. I believe Erica slept nearly the whole way.

We've yet to figure it out, and I'll upload some pics later, but for some reason Erica is attracting some occassionally significant attention from Indians with cameras. We haven't been able to figure out if they are laughing with her/us or at her/us, but at this point she's had her picture taken 4 times with a variety of different people.

All for now...

A bit late but...

2008-10-04T08:25:00.000-07:00

here's some notes which have been sitting on our little laptop for a shortwhile. we're in Jaipur right now and really enjoying it.

sooo... after a couple of weeks in the US which seemed like so much more, we landed in london after what seemed like a few minutes (due to some snoozing), to be greeted by a man with a sign reading “erica & joe”. I haven't had the pleasure of having someone waiting with my name on a piece of paper at the airport, and it was quite nice. we had a wonderful few days spent with Heather & Ian at their amazing abode in Surrey, and spent one day walking around London a bit. We then got on a plane bound for Kuwait...

Entering the airport in Kuwait City was a lot of fun. prayer rooms, smoking rooms (although everyone was smoking everywhere anyway), many people in traditional dress, and of course... a mcdonalds. we had a little exchange rate confusion, as the kuwaiti dinar is worth a lot more than I expected or had read or something. I was confused, but we ended up exchanging a 5 pound note for 2 and 1 quarter dinars, which was good for 1 strawberry juice and a blueberry muffin. not a screaming deal, but a lot of fun. the guy doing the exchange conversion was simultaneously working on some huge transaction with our tiny tiny one, so we both thought we were about to get a truckload of dinars. Because the currency board didn't have any decimal points, we didn't know what the rate was so, it was a little scary. he counted out about 200 notes (at which point I was hoping that people in the delhi airport really like kuwaiti dinars) and then eventually turned around and gave us 3 with a little receipt.

I awaited India with a fair amount of trepidation. We landed at around 5:30 am, and were lucky enough to have another man with a sign reading “Erica Blake” waiting to take us to our hotel. The ride from the airport took nearly 30 minutes, and gave us a pretty solid driving tour of the city. embassy row was beauitful, and the energy in the street is infectious. it was all somehow less overwhelming than Ivhad imagined. The colors are wonderful, and the driving is incredible. touts are less touty than I had expected, or we haven't really seen any yet. At this point, I think that west africa might have been a good warm up for ... well, the rest of the world, but certainly for India. More on India soon....

Incredible India!

2008-10-01T06:39:00.000-07:00

The title of this post is the Indian Government's tourism slogan, and so far, we tend to agree: India is Incredible.
We had been told (and were anxious) that we might be met with overwhelming heat, potential tummy sickness, pushy touts and taxi drivers and challenges finding things and arranging travel when we arrived in India. Of course, we just arrived this morning but so far, things are going smoothly. Our hotel-arranged cab drive was waiting for us at 5 a.m. when our plane got in and took us straight to our hotel which we would have never found ourselves as it is down windy roads through a bazaar in Central Delhi. The hotel air-conditioning works well and we took a nap after watching CNN (CNN would have been quite a luxury in Africa!) and catching up on the bad worldwide economic news. : (
The streets of Delhi were quite manageable when we went out today. We went to the pharmacy and stocked up on things we might need if we get sick, we went to the train station and bought train tickets to Agra where the Taj Mahal is for a day-trip tomorrow and for Jaipur, in Rajasthan the next day. Then, we took a bicycle rickshaw (not very far! and we paid him extra! but it was an experience) to a recommended restaurant for lunch where we did not recognize anything on the menu but were helped by a kind English-speaking Indian woman at the table next to us. Aftewards, we took an auto rickshaw to Hanuman's tomb, which is a set of buildings that looks like the Taj Mahal a bit, on beautiful grounds, dating back to the mid 16th century. We walked around there as the sun was getting low in the sky- it was magical! Now we are exhausted and going to bed!

Visits Home and to Surrey! Yay!

2008-10-01T06:23:00.000-07:00

Joe and I just picked up our travels again (arrived in Delhi, India this morning and so far it is great) after 3 and 1/2 much treasured and wonderful weeks in the Western World- and at home!
We were in NJ (and made our way into NYC and beloved Brooklyn a few times) for 2 weeks, staying with my parents and sister Caroline and preparing for and celebrating my brother Patrick's wedding to Erin. It was such fun. Great to spend time with the family, see the extended family at the wedding, visit the Jersey shore and spend time with my graduate school ladies in Philadelphia! And not worry about getting stomach sick or being understood when speaking English!

We also attended Joe's friend Andy's wedding to Jen, which was a fun and artistically beautiful wedding at the Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center. Joe wore a tux! And Andy seemed so happy. Then, we were off to Sanibel where we spent time at Joe's mom's house and with his grandma, uncle and cousin, lounging at the beach and by the pool. It was 90 degrees and beautiful in FL which was good preparation for our arrival in India.

But before we touched down in Delhi, we spent four blissful days with my dear old (ASL) highschool friend Heather at she and her husband, Ian's, lovely house outside of London in Surrey. We ate at the pubs in their village and went on walks in the fields and woods near their home and also combined the two in an extended walk in Box Hill, Surrey, where we walked through the hills and forests before making our way to a 16th century pub for lunch!

Thanks to everyone who took such good care of us and made our time home (and in England) memorable and comfortable! We sure miss you when we are away.

Penguins, Baboons, Ostrich and Other South African Adventures

2008-08-16T06:36:00.000-07:00

We arrived in South Africa nearly 10 days ago, after some hellish last few days in West Africa...We contracted parasites (giardia!! ugh!) during our last meal in Bamako, Mali, before heading back to Dakar, Senegal. We then holed up in our hotel in Dakar for four days, miserable and unable to go anywhere until the day arrived that we were to get on our flight to South Africa. We were so ready to leave West Africa, yet we blew it by arriving at the airport too late to get on our flight! We spent the last 24 hours in Senegal, attempting to negotiate African airport chaos and determine whether we would be able to get on the same flight to South Africa the next morning. We did!
And we are here, in Cape Town! We went to a doctor soon after arriving, got on extremely strong meds and are now feeling well...Cape Town and the surrounding area is absolutely beautiful, stunning and amazing. There are elememts of its natural beauty, architecture and scenery that remind us of New England, Oregon, Northern California, Ireland, but then there are baboons and ostriches and penguins in the wild! We had a great wild-life viewing day yesterday where we saw all three of these animals up close. The penguins were awesome! A whole little colony about 20 feet away from us, on Boulder Beach south of Cape Town. We rented a car and drove around the Cape south of the city for the last few days. The Southern part of the Cape is all national park, it is stunning. We rented a cabin in the gorgeous little town of Scarborough and saw incredible sunsets...
It is wonderful to be able to communicate with people in English again. I can now take care of making decisions, paying for things, making calls, etc, rather than relying on Joe to be source of communication with the outside world. We have been eating good food, drinking good wine and going to see movies...The weather is mild (low 70s during the day and low 50s at night) and it is nice to not be hot and sweaty all the time. Joe is now watching the South African national team play New Zealand in rugby, at a local bar. Apparently, many black, South Africans support the New Zealand team because up until the end of Apartheid, the South African team did not allow blacks to play (and the team is still largely white). In a nutshell, this captures a lot of the on-going conflict of life and politics in this country. It is so incredibly different from West Africa, but there are major challenges facing this country, even while its economy is the powerhouse of Sub-Saharan Africa.
Tomorrow, we start our ventures into other regions of South Africa. We booked a ticket on the tourist bus, called the Baz Bus, which will allow us to get on and off the bus from here to Durban (about 1000 miles up the coast) for the next 2 weeks. We have our route mostly planned out and it sounds incredible. Our first stop will be Stellenbosch, in the wine-growing region, where we will go wine-tasting. Joe says it looks a lot like Napa there. Afterwards, we head to the town of Wilderness (love that name), on the Garden Route of the Indian Ocean, where there is a 27 km long, undeveloped beach on a national park...More from there!

Reflections on Mali and Burkina

2008-07-27T04:30:00.000-07:00

-Erica, Bobo-Dialassou, Burkina Faso
I haven't written anything in a while, so I thought I would just get some thoughts down here, quickly. We just arrived in Burkina Faso 3 days ago and will just be here a week before heading back through Mali and to Senegal from where we fly to South Africa in 12 days. I am excited about South Africa and the prospect of a nation of many English speakers where we will be able to buy books, watch movies and TV in English, etc!

We had some rough days in Mali. We abandoned the private taxi method of getting around that we had adopted in Senegal and took some very long, hot and crowded local transport around the country. It is amazing how many people and goods can be squashed into a station wagon, Land Rover, bus, and how slow these things move!
It is harder to get things done in Mali. Communication with locals is more challenging (less people speak French there than in Senegal; a lot of local dialects are spoken instead) and there are more would-be guides and craft merchants than anywhere I have ever been. It became comical.
We met more English-speaking and tourists back-packing like us in Mali which made for a lot of fun times, laughing at our shared predicaments of trying to get from place to place and avoiding the touts, etc.
We spent our last few days in Mali in Dogon Country, which is a part of Mali where people used to construct dwellings and villages in the cliff walls, as in the American Southwest. Now, the Dogon people live on the flat lands below the cliffs, but the original villages in the cliffs can still be explored. We hired a local guide and went to Dogon for 2 nights with a Peace Corps volunteer from Maine who we met in Mali. We hiked about 15-20 km a day through very beautiful country and slept in the villages at night. We had a lot of fun but were ready to get back to civilization after 3 days because the food was pretty bad and we wanted to take showers!
After a long travel day from Dogon, we arrived in the capital of Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou, a couple of nights ago. We treated ourselves to some good (French-owned) restaurants there and went to see live music at the most local live music venue we have been to since arriving in West Africa. We were the only non-Burkinabés there. It was super fun.
We are now in Bobo-Dialassou, Burkina's 2nd largest and very chill city, from where we will head to the smaller, tropical town of Banfora and rent bikes to see some hippos (that is what all the tourists do there and it sounds good!).

Mali, Dogon and on...

2008-07-25T05:11:00.001-07:00

It's been too long, but internet has been hard to find. Since the last post, we went (in Mali) from Bamako to Segou to Sévaré to Dogon Country, with a couple day trips to Djenné and Mopti. We're now sitting in a "cyber" in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Where to start? The picture at left was taken from a restaurant in Segou, of a boy polling along the pirogue while his father put out a net. Watching the sunset over the Niger with a beer was a highlight. As we've mentioned, travel has otherwise been hard. There is clearly a heavy tourist trail most everywhere we've been, but not many tourists as its the down season. The result is there are far less tourists to garner the attention of would be guides, curio hawkers; etc. It gets old after time - with almost any walk of any distance involving a significant amount of repetition. After being here for weeks, I would love to know how many people (in Sénégal and Mali) have asked us to take a look at their wares "juste pour la plaisir de les yeux" - just for the pleasure of the eyes. I think we're nearing the triple figures on that one alone.

But on to some quick impressions :

Segou - the Niger is beautiful there, and when we weren't being followed/spoken to, it was fun. Unfortunately, that wasn't for very long...
Sévaré - We did mellow out a bit in Sévaré. Its a bit in convienient, but centrally located. Not much shaking, but we did get our day trips in to Djenne and Mopti
Djenné - this unesco world heritage site with a large mud mosque built in 1905 has sewerage running down all the pathways in open streams. The mosque is certainly unlike any building I had seen before, but after taking 3.5 hours to get there, we were very glad we would be leaving that day.
Mopti - After being told that it is the "Venice of Mali", I took a day trip out there with some friends we'd met in Djenné while Erica sat it out. We got to see a great thunderstorm come in to the town, and the pinasse and pirogue activity around the river was fun to watch, but I couldn't muster the strength to tell Erica she'd missed much.

Dogon country requires much more than a bullet item. It is certainly the main tourist draw within Mali along with Timbuktu. After having a bit of a rough go attempting to secure a guide into Dogon Country, we tagged along with Nick, a Peace Corps volunteer from the Gambia who had a connection via some Peace Corps Mali volunteers. After a SUV ride to the first village (wonderfully pronounced "jiggy-boom-bo"), we started walking down the falaise (french for cliff). It feels a bit like one half of a valley in the Canyonlands, but as its the rainy season, there's a fair amount of greenery with an occassional palm tree. I wish I could upload pictures as they would assist me here. We stayed for 2 nights and hiked for 3 days.

Music....

2008-07-14T06:27:00.000-07:00

Although we're somehow unable to stay up past about midnight, we've managed to check out the following live music so far on the trip :

I've forgotten his name, but we saw a great group @ Just 4 U in Dakar. The band consisted of a lead acoustic guitarist, drums, bass, trombone, & bongos. The lead singer didn't come out for a few songs, and the band played some great stuff - mixing is some covers we recognized with some senegalese music. The band was great, and I really enjoyed listening to the guitarist. Later the lead singer came out and played some great songs as well. I only recognized a Fela song (Mama Africa), but they all sounded wonderful.

In Saint-Louis, we caught a local band playing what I think is more straight-up Senegalese music, with a similar instrument selection. The guitarist was again very very good, and it was great fun watching this group as the venue was filled with locals who were really enjoying themselves and the music. A few songs in guys from the audience got up and switched with some members of the band for a few songs as well, which added to the vibe a bit. After this place, we went over to a jazz bar and listened to some more standard jazz played by a trio - drums, bass & keys.

Night before last, we caught some wonderful music here in Bamako at La Savanna. Lead guitarist, backup guitarist, bassist, drums, 1 guy on a single bongo-style drum, and another who would alternate between a couple stand up bongos and a tranditional percussion instrument, which erica described as playing a pumpkin with chopsticks... the lead guitarist was really impressive, and we had a great time listening to these guys.

Finally, last night we caught an extremely informal guy playing a kora who was later joined by a guitarist at another restaurant here in Bamako. We were basically the only people in attendence, and I'm not sure if they continued once we left, but the music was really cool. It was fun to watch and learn a bit about the kora as an instrument, as I wasn't very familiar with it previously.

All for now...

Zebrabar Days and Moving on to Mali

2008-07-12T07:53:00.000-07:00

Joe and I spent five chilled out days at a Swiss-run campement (a tourist hotel), called Zebrabar in northern Senegal, very close to Saint-Louis, before heading back to Dakar for a couple nights and flying out to Bamako, Mali this morning. Zebrabar was such a welcome retreat from the hot, cities and tourist beaches of Senegal where people so frequently wanted to sell us things or guide us around, etc. The owners of Zebrabar bought the land 12 years ago when they decided to relocate to Senegal permanently from Switzerland. The couple now has two children, but just the dad and the 6 year old son were there when we stayed there (the wife and daughtere were in Switzerland). The land abuts a lagoon and the Senegalese National Park of Langue de Barbarie, which is a series of barrier islands and lagoons separated from an unpopulated part of the Atlantic by a thin strip of land (the Langue de Barbarie). When the owners bought the land, there was nothing there. Now, there are bungalows for rent, a campground, a main building with a restaurant and a large house for themselves. They run off of solar energy, which is an anomaly (but shouldn't be as Senegal is prime real estate for solar power) there, for sure. There were kayaks and a windsurfer for our use and a variety of travelers who passed through while we were there. We had communal dinners outside at night (the food was so good, it was a treat! the owners had taught their Senegalese cooks to make incredible European food, including salad with sterilized vegetables that we could eat!), with a changing group of Belgians, French, Germans, Senegalese, and Americans. The common language was French, of course, but people would humor me and speak English from time to time. We met several Europeans who are ex-pats in Senegal and it was incredible to have a glimpse into their lives. Many of them drive home to Europe in the summer and drive back with supplies, taking a ferry from Spain to Morrocco and making the trip in anywhere from 3 days to a few weeks to Senegal. Each day we kayaked to the ocean, across the lagoon. We didn't do much else, aside from read, walk into the village (where the kids would follow us around and ask us questions and call us "toubabs", of course) for lunch or bread or soda and drink beers on the roof (great view!) at sunset. While there, we didn't check email or have news of the outside world for 5 days, which was strange, but good.
We traveled back to Dakar with the owners of Zebrabar and a new friend, Alexis, from Albany who was at Zebrabar with us (and who will be travelling to Mali in a couple of weeks, so we might run into her again!). Dakar is just kind of crazy. Lots of traffic and energy and attention on us. We stayed in a wealthy beach neighborhood this time and it seems a stretch to call it wealthy- there is extreme poverty next to $500 a night hotels.
This morning, we flew from Dakar to Bamako, the capital of Mali. We had met several aid workers in Senegal who were working Mali and everyone told us how much less developed and poorer Mali is than Senegal. This is apparent as soon as you leave the airport. But we like it here so far. Everything is brown (from the buildings and houses to the river and streets) and green and wet, as the rainy season just started here. The Niger River (one of the longest and widest in Africa) runs through Bamako and most of Mali and it is beautiful - with green islands dotting it. We are staying in the neighborhood that is frequented by ex-pats (there are a ton of development/aid workers from a wide variety of nationalities in Mali as it is one of the 4 poorest countries in the world according to the UN development index), and there are several live music venues nearby. We plan to hit up a few of those in the next couple of nights (this is one of the reasons why we came to West Africa- to see live music in Bamako!) before hitting the road to head further south and east into Mali. We are planning on going hiking in the famed Dogon Country that we have been hearing about from every tourist we've met in the region.
- Erica, Bamako, Mali

Thoughts a week in to this thing...

2008-07-04T05:11:00.001-07:00

As Erica has alluded multiple times, and I must repeat : Senegalese people are the warmest, kindest, most ready to smile people I've encountered. I particularly enjoy our interactions with guys who's primary purpose is to get us to buy something from them (a tour, a curio, seafood, etc.). Some are pretty driven and will stay on message (i.e. sell, sell, sell), but for the most part, if I start asking questions about what they are talking about, or move the conversation at all tangentially, we end up just having a brief conversation and say goodbye. I just get the impression that they would obviously like to sell something, but would prefer to just talk a bit, which is great fun.

Along with soccer, the national sport here is wrestling. We saw many kids wrestling on the beach, and I hope to catch some of it on tv tonight. Coming out of the water on the beach last week, I was jogging up to where we were sitting, and crossed paths with thing youing Senegalese guy. He stopped right in front of me and put his arms out straight at me sorta like a kickboxer and said, "mon ami, tu veut faire un peu de combat avec moi?" (my friend, would you like to do a little combat with me?" - with a huge smile on his face. I started laughing immediately and thanked him for the offer. He laughed a bit and continued on jogging down the beach with his friend. It was just a great quick interaction that I really enjoyed. Later that evening, I was taking a picture of Erica on the beach, and another young kid says to me, "you want me in there too, right?" with another huge smile. I dig it... I can't remember being anywhere else where people are so happy to joke and laugh with us. Solid fun.

I got 3 more minutes on me internet so will drop off for now. More later...

How does the CFA being pegged to the Euro effect West Africa?

2008-07-04T05:05:00.000-07:00

After spending about a week here in Senegal, I'm extremely curious to learn what the on balance effect on the local economies the CFA being pegged to the Euro has. The positive aspects, I would think are :

* - the currency's value only fluctuates with the Euro, and not due to local economic conditions
* - the governments are unable to devalue their currencies themselves
* - eases trade with the Euro zone
.... etc.

Given the recent rise in the Euro, however, I think it would fairly negatively effect the region's exports to any non-Euro countries. So, given just the few things I've mentioned, I wonder if overall the peg is helpful or harmful to these individual economies.

Toubabs in Saint-Louis

2008-07-04T04:40:00.000-07:00

4th of July.
Senegalese people call white people "Toubabs." We hear it several times a day. Yesterday, a woman leaned out of a bus, patted joe on the head and said, "Bonjour, toubab." We are constantly amazed by how nice everyone is here. Children stop us on the street to shake the toubabs hands, everyone waves at us, etc.
We are now in Saint-Louis, Senegal; a city on the North Atlantic Coast, near the border with Mauritania. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The city is on an island in the Senegal River. It was the French administrative capital of French Colonial Africa for 200 years. It is beautiful and the architecture is picturesque but also looks like it is falling apart. The food here is great - all over Senegal, we have been impressed by how good the food is. The hot sauce is incredibly, mouth-burning, too, which is fantastic! In Saint-Louis, we are staying at a beautiful hotel on the river- La Louisiane. We are currently the only guests. When we arrived, a Dutch family traveling with their teenage daughter for 2 weeks (and all by public transportation- they are an inspiration to us!) was also there. We drove north from the southern Petit Cote to Saint-Louis 2 days ago. We paid a driver 180 dollars for the 4 hour cab ride (Felipe Orrego told us that we were going to have to get a driver in West Africa but we did not take him seriously at the time, we thought we were hard core public transport travelers, but the busses here go so slow and look so packed!). We still have not braved public transport, but are thinking we might try it next week when we go back to Dakar to fly out to Mali.
Saint-Louis is famous for its Jazz Festival every spring. We missed it but are going to see a jazz show tonight. It will be the first time we are not in bed by 10 in a week! Happy 4th of July!
- Erica, Saint-Louis, Senegal

Startin off- in Senegal

2008-06-30T10:45:00.000-07:00

This is our first blog from Africa. We have been in Senegal for 6 days. It feels like at least twice as long! Each day has been hard and tiring and fun and beautiful. We are continually shocked with how expensive everything is! The U.S. dollar is just killing us against the Central African Franc. As a result, we have not seen many U.S. or other travelers like us at all. The foreigners we do see in country are either ex-pats or people on a high-dollar, resort-type vacation from Europe. Upon arrival, we spent 2 days in Dakar. We saw good live music at the perennial Dakar music venue, Just 4 U. We ate good, African food, and watched the Euro Cup soccer matches (the Senegalese were all routing for Turkey and then Spain over Russia and Germany). We also went to the colonial island off of Dakar, called Ile de Goree. It was gorgeous there! Goree was a centre of the slave trade from West Africa to the U.S. during the 18th and 19th centuries and is now a U.N. World Heritage Site. We encountered a similar annoying phenomenon there as we had in Dakar, however. Everyone wants to sell us things! Crafts and jewelery, football jerseys and guide services- ugh, it is annoying. Since I (Erica) do not speak French, I feign ignorance and ignore these touts. Joe is stuck with the job of getting rid of them-usually with a smile and humor and friendly words (as is his way).
On our way out of Dakar, we intended to take a bus or shared taxi out to the beach (where we are now). We got in a cab outside of our hotel, Hotel Oceanic, and immediately, the cab driver offered to take us all the way to the beach- at least 2 hours. We declined and said we wanted to go the bus station. He kept telling us we did not want to go to the bus station and when we arrived, we saw why. I had never seen my husband change his mind so quickly! He told the cab driver to keep going and take us to the beach! I could not help laughing, though the desolation and ominous emptiness of the bus station was not that funny. There were no passengers in sight! The road out of Dakar included some of the most impressive traffic we had ever seen. I was so thankful to be in a taxi and not a crowded, big bus that would have gotten stuck in every traffic jam. We have basically concluded that public transportation is not an option for us in Senegal. We have been taking taxis, which are in abundance. Neither of us have ever travelled anywhere that we did not readily hop in and out of public transport, so this is a change for us. It is something we have gotten comfortable with, however.
Our next stop was in the small beach town of Somone, where we stayed at the Hotel Phenix (at 80 dollars a night we had sticker shock originally, but considering it had a kitchen, living room, and air-conditioning, we realiz now it was a good deal. The staff at Phenix was incredibly sweet and friendly. Joe made friends with all of them. The hotel was on the beach and we talked to the locals walking by and went swimming in the ocean with new, young friends all day long. I cannot say strongly enough how kind and open the people are in Senegal. We will be walking down a street filled with people who are not paying attention to us, who are just sitting outside their stores and houses and if we smile or wave and say, Bonjour, everyone lights up and asks us how we are doing. We also made ourselves sick in Somone; there is no one else to blame it on as we were cooking for ourselves. We alternate between blaming it on a raw (but washed and peeled!) cucumber or some funky, questionable (because it had travelled all the way from France to La Somone) cheese from France. : ) Our tummies are now on the mend after two days of chillin in the famed Petit Cote beach resort town of Saly. We do not like Saly. The beaches of Sanibel are 1000 times prettier and there are so many touts (would-be guides) and vendors of crap we do not want to purchase, that it is overwhelming to leave the hotel. Luckily, our hotel is an oasis with a pool and good restaurant (not that we can eat much because of our tummies) and about 10 young, beautiful Senegalese staff with great taste in music.

That is it from us today. 6 days into this adventure. Senegal has engendered complex feelings in us. It is way more expensive than we would have hoped from our first stop on our long journey, Dakar is overwhelming and was occasionally very bleak, the touts are way too numerous for our tastes, and yet we have been treated with such kindness at every turn and we make each other laugh 20 times a day (that my French is atrocious is constantly amusing to us! I speak Spanish uconsciously and hope someone might understand me).

- Erica; Saly, Senegal

This is excitingly apprehensive business

2008-05-28T13:30:00.000-07:00

Dipping my toe into the shallow end of the internets over here. There may be more later, on that I'm certain.