The Om Dog Diary

Back in the U.S. of A.

2008-05-23T16:24:00.000-07:00

We all knew the fairy tale had to come to an end at some point, but you can't say we didn't live it up the past 14 months. What a whirlwind of adventures we've had! Big thanks to all of you who've graciously followed us on this wacky experience of a lifetime. It surely has been one wild ride.

David and I flew "home" May 10 after five great weeks in New Zealand. Our consolidator wrangled us a free stopover in Fiji, which was great despite rain the bulk of the time. It didn't stop us from downing bottles of Fiji Bitter, playing cards on our balcony, and snorkeling when the sun did appear for brief stints. We had to fly to LAX next to catch an SF flight, but that was fine with us. For the first time ever, it was comforting to see the City of Angels, if only for a few hours.

We enjoyed eight nights in Fiji, branching out of our Western-catered resort to attend a Fijian Methodist church service in the village. We always make an effort to hang with the locals as much as possible, and Fiji was no exception. It reminded us a lot of Kenya, with its beautiful jungles, third-world villages, and wonderfully kind people. As luck would have it, one of the girls from church also works at our resort, and she later invited us to a kava ceremony at her father's house. Her sister and brothers were there, along with her dad (who lived in the Bay Area...go figure) and all of the subsequent kids/grandkids. Too cute! We brought gifts for the family, then got down to business. Kava tastes pretty nasty but it gives you a good, mellow buzz. It also, if you drink enough of it, forces you to visit the jungle outhouse, which--thanks to the resident stinkbug on the wall and toad on the floor--wasn't my favorite part of the night, but the warmth of these folks quickly overshadowed that dicey part.

New Zealand surpassed my expectations and then some. We scored a killer deal on a rental car and toodled around both the South and North Islands for 32 days. WOW! Highlights were swimming with dolphins (amazing!), hiking to the foot of Mt. Cook (the country's highest peak), strolling around the lake in Wanaka, cruising the Milford Sound, and soaking up Maori culture in Rotorua.

Sadly I fell off a horse in Glenorchy just as we were preparing to gallop up to the lookout where Aragorn and the gang hung out while filming a good chunk of Lord of the Rings. Oh well...at least nothing was broken (and the pics are beautiful). I suffered a nasty contusion on my left hip and thigh that still has me limping today. It put a damper on much of our adventure plans for NZ, but once I hit the sheep show in Rotorua while David did the more physically demanding morning of sledging, I was in hog heaven and forgot all about the injury...for a time. We all know how much I love animals!

Australia wasn't our favorite for reasons I won't ramble on about here, but the body surfing was killer (to coin a phrase from my UCLA days), and we spent most of our time at the beaches between Brisbane and Sydney. And yes, we held the requisite koala and even fed a few kangaroos (domesticated ones, that is). And I have to admit that seeing the Sydney opera house and harbor in person was pretty special.

Prior to arriving in Oz via Singapore on a raucous redeye to Brisbane that left us too drunk to rent a car (no joke), we spent 10 glorious days back in Bali, where we'd visited in 2005. Our attempts to get to Lombok failed as storms persisted and we opted to kick it in Ubud versus brave the rough seas for the chance at idyllic life on the Gili Islands. We were so glad we did, as many of the old memories came flooding back from our earlier days there. We even reconnected with a hotel staffer from our 2005 stay who made the effort to visit us at our current guesthouse. We were treated like family at our new pad, got $5 massages almost daily, ate great food, did a colonic, hiked around the villages and rice paddies, and soaked up some sun at our pool. We made many new friends this time around and hope to return in the future to further our explorations of this magical island and culture.

It's been wild to be back in the States, but at least the culture shock has been kept at a minimum due to our spending the last two months in Australia and New Zealand. The former has all of the things we dislike about America; the latter is a hidden treasure we don't want to share with anyone :-)
We enjoyed five short days in San Francisco (much to the chagrin of our good friends), taking in a Giants game (Americana at its best!) the morning after our U.S. return. We were still a bit jetlagged but cheered on our home team regardless. It was quite emotional to rise for the national anthem, something we hadn't done or heard in a really long time. It felt good that day to be an American, which wasn't always the case when we were traveling.

We moved on to visit our good friends Cathy and Hashem, also in the City, who graciously hosted us for four more nights. We spent long evenings eating good food, drinking yummy wine, and telling stories. Hashem graduates tomorrow from SF State with a broadcasting degree, and we wish him well on his quest for his first news reporting job. He and Cathy are very dear to us, and we just hope Hashem's new career doesn't send him to South Dakota for too long a stint. We envision great things for them both.

Seeing as David's 40th conveniently landed during our first week back, we made it to Vegas last Thursday in our car (fresh out of storage) to celebrate in grand style. What better way to reintroduce yourself to American culture than to hit the land of plenty where everything is bigger, better, and glitzier than the rest. Of course, I jest. But the contrast was an interesting one, and we had a blast! Didn't win back any trip expenses (I think we lost the equivalent of a small home in SE Asia), but we had a great time gambling, cruising the strip, and riding the NYNY roller coaster at midnight. Despite a couple of late-night three-card poker streaks, where I hit two big hands, we came out behind but had a fun time doing it. Isn't that always the main thing?

We then spent one night with my college roommate Devon and her family in Henderson, NV, and had fun catching up with them and their adorable girls in their new home. We're now here in Scottsdale, Arizona, visiting my mom, and reuniting with David's parents, who flew in yesterday from Connecticut. It's really great to be back with family, who, along with our friends, are the things we truly missed while traveling. Well, and good Mexican food, too. I can't lie.

We plan to spend June on the road in the Southwest to see if there are any other areas we could consider living in the future, as we've resigned ourselves to the fact that we'll probably never be able to buy in California (yes, even despite the failing housing market). But in all honesty, I think we're procrastinating coming back to the "real world" (and I'm not sure you could move me away from a coast). We do plan to return to San Francisco in July and then probably sublet for a bit until we figure out our next move. We're considering an apartment in either the Napa/Sonoma area or the Monterey Peninsula. We desperately need to get our stuff out of storage (it's been 2.5 years!), get rid of half of it, and start work on our book proposal and other creative adventures. And yes, some kind of jobs will have to be in our near future as well. We don't naively expect to become famous published authors right out the gate, but one has to keep the dream alive, right?

Of course, I'd be lying to you all if I didn't admit David and I have had plenty of conversations lately that center around when we'll be heading out into the great big world again. I think we're more acclimated now to living in Asia than we are to the modern conveniences and abundance that America provides. We're more comfortable with showers that get the entire bathroom wet, and spicy foods that make our stomachs sit upright and masochistically beg for more. I miss the cows walking down the street and the loud hum of foreign languages in my ear.

Stay tuned! Our next blog just might come to you from the mountains of Nepal or an English-language school in Indonesia. And you know I'm only half-joking.

A Birthday to Remember...Sulawesi Style

2008-02-08T02:29:00.000-08:00

Things have been looking up since we fled India and hit the streets of Malaysia. A month later, after zipping through modern Kuala Lumpur, lovely beachside Langkawi, culturally awesome Penang, and the amazing landscapes of Borneo (both Sabah and Sarawak), we've now arrived in Indonesia. North Sulawesi, to be exact. Not a place where they see many Western tourists, but we like it that way. We get a lot of stares, which, when we throw back a smile and "hello," turn into more smiles and big "hellos." We like that, too.

I celebrated my birthday this year as an affair to truly remember. It arrived with much anticipation after a crazy two days of travel from Kuching, Malaysian Borneo, to Johar Bahru, Malaysia and on to Singapore, which is just across the causeway and supposedly a quick drive. Using public transportation, however, makes it a three+-hour ordeal. Luckily we were crashing in the spare room at David's second cousin once removed (or something like that), who lives in Singapore with his adorable family (which includes a brand-new baby). Nonetheless, the family charm was soon dispelled by our over-four hour delay to Jakarta, which was besieged by floods.

Thanks to a cool immigration control dude who let us use the Diplomats lane for passport control (thus shaving some 30 minutes off our wait), and some quick-thinking parking control guys at the Jakarta airport, who radioed for a patrol car to whisk us over to the domestic terminal when the shuttle bus didn't arrive, we arrived just in time to make our flight to Manado in North Sulawesi, although we did have to throw too many U.S. dollars for departure tax at the ticket agent (no time to argue a fair conversion price), not to mention perform the 1,000-meter dash through the airport with four backpacks on in sweltering humidity, while every Indonesian on Java appeared to be screaming "Manado, Manado" back at us when they saw us running pell-mell asking, "Manado? Manado?" We were the last people to board and caused quite a ruckus when the flight attendants couldn't figure out how to offload our large backpacks at the last minute to the cargo hold and ended up cramming them in with their own bags in the special wardrobe.

We arrived very late at 1:30am the next day, found a good guesthouse, and slept like babies. We wasted no time in leaving the city, heading up to a little hill village called Tomohon in the Minahasa Highlands, about one hour south of Manado. Tomohon is lush, green, known for flowers/nurseries, and sits in a valley beneath two stunning volcanoes, both of them recently active in the 20th century I believe. It's really lovely.

We found refuge at this great little home stay called "Happy Flower," run by a neat Indonesian family. There are only three bungalows, four mangy dogs, tons of flowers, and tons of frogs croaking at the tops of their lungs all night long. It was pretty clean and neat, despite mildewy pillows and a few bugs in the partially open-air bathroom. It did have hot water, which is a bonus here, and a great balcony where we read and just watched the rain fall while the butterflies flit by.

Yoce, who greeted us on arrival, does tours around town. A cool Canadian girl named Jolene was with us the last two days at the home stay; she also happened to be one of only two other Westerners on our flight that crazy night, and greeted us with a, "Oh, so you're the guys making all that commotion on the plane the other night." Luckily she said it with a smile. As we quickly bonded with a fellow North American, the three of us hired Yoce for a half-day tour of the market and then a hike up to the crater of Mt. Mahawu. The price (about $25 for the three of us) included transportation and fruit, in addition to guide services. Not shabby.

So the transportation: This area is filled with little turquoise minivans called "mikrolets" that take you everywhere. So we hop in one of those from the rice field we were strolling along, and arrive at the main market about seven minutes later. We toured around and they sell some really gruesome things: fried bats, rats on sticks, and the most disturbing of all: dogs! We saw complete whole dogs charred and sitting on tables, some cut open to show their guts, not to mention LIVE dogs crammed in cages waiting to be...um...fried. So that was funky, but the people and stuff were amazing to see...probably the weirdest market in all our travels. That says a lot, given where we've been.

So then the next challenge...local scooter riding up to the volcano trailhead (don't tell our insurance agent). We'd heard from two cool Aussies that stayed with us the first night that this is how you really get around to the cool places here. I really didn't want to get on the back of a motorbike with an Indonesian dude smoking and driving on village backroads, as our insurance doesn't cover us, and you always hear horror stories (and see banged up people) in Asia. But as they say, when in Rome...

So by the time I'm done snapping photos, David, Jolene, and Yoce are already on the backs of their scooters, so I hop on mine. My helmet doesn't snap in, but then again...when in Rome. As David put it later, it would suffice for the initial impact but probably flop off after that. Lovely thought. Despite my initial anxiety, we never went that fast and ended up having this really serene, beautiful ride up the volcano through amazing farms and fields.

The hike was pretty easy, the crater really cool. We hiked through a ton of long grasses above our heads along the rim for about 10 minutes and then Yoce cut fresh mangoes for us up there and we took in the sulfur smell. The views were out of this world, although much of the sea beyond was clouded over. Then we hiked down through the jungle, and it wasn't too buggy. We alit on a local road, hiked through the village for a bit, and then since it started sprinkling...back on another posse of motorbikes. The ride was fast, and we made it back to the home stay in one piece. It was just really fun, and a great way to spend my 39th birthday.

David gave me a cute little cotton pouch he'd bought in Malaysia, stuffed with hand-drawn coupons for massage, ice cream, and the like. It was really cute and thoughtful, especially given the resources of where we are (read: unless you want to buy a scooter or a charred dog, limited). We had a nice dinner with Jolene and the mangy dogs at the home stay, then chilled out afterwards. It poured all night and we had rats eating/nesting in our ceiling, but other than that, a peaceful sleep.

It's a birthday I'll never forget, and just another really amazing day on this wild adventure of ours. I feel really alive here and so relaxed, and it's great. People are SO friendly and the area is really beautiful. I wonder how I can top that for my 40th...any suggestions are welcome.

Happy-to-be-leaving-India New Year!

2007-12-29T00:22:00.000-08:00

I can't believe that 2008 is just around the corner. Tonight we leave India (whew...finally!) on a red-eye to Kuala Lumpur. Hello Malyasia! I have to admit I'm barely able to contain my excitement to depart this crazy country. I never once thought for a second that India would be easy, but lately, I've found myself missing China. That says a lot! Of course, I haven't had a chance to share my thoughts on China here yet, but when I do, you'll understand why it's pretty nuts for me to make the statement I just did.

Bodh Gaya, as you know if you read my previous blog, was amazing, spiritual, insane, sad, dirty, noisy, and enlightening all at the same time. On the morning we left, we endured a 5:30am wild auto rickshaw ride in the dark at the hands of two young Indian punks who drove as if they were characters in a video game. I honestly wasn't sure if we'd arrive at the train station in one piece. Luckily we did, and were pleased to see our train pull into the station on time at 6:25am.

We were looking at a 13-hour ride to Agra in a 2nd-class sleeper car. Sounded doable, except we weren't expecting to sit on the track after lunch in the middle of nowhere for 2.5 hours (this part of India runs on a single track, so apparently you have to wait for passing trains a lot of the time); or have endless cockroaches crawling over our seats and up the walls for the bulk of the journey; or be visited several times by a mouse, let alone experience the nasty personal habits that most Indians exhibit in public without reservation (hacking, spitting, loud talking, vocal belching, slurpy eating). That aside, the mouse didn't bother me too much (remember I'm a former pet rat owner) but the roaches made my skin crawl. No, they gave me a full-blown panic attack. Add to that continued delays along the way, and needless to say, David and I pulled into Agra bleary-eyed and at our wits' ends at 12:15 the next morning. Ugh! Those are 18 hours that we won't forget too soon but surely were happy to put behind us.

Agra is a pit of a city, with dirty old streets and funky little hamlets surrounding one of the most famous, pristine sites in the world. Hard to believe this is home to the Taj Mahal. We enjoyed our visit to the architectural marvel, but to be honest, I thought the place was a bit overhyped, and the drizzling rain didn't help much either. The money shots with blue sky behind that pearly white just aren't there. We toured the cool fort the next day, checked out the view of the Taj from across the river (haze prevented us from seeing too clearly), and had a nice dinner and good chat with two Indian brothers at their local restaurant. Our hotel was run by a bunch of cheats and scammers, but at least our room was clean. (Sadly, that theme will repeat itself throughout the rest of our time in India.) Things were, dare I say it, looking up.

The next morning a driver picked us up at 7:00am, and we embarked on our two-week road tour of Rajasthan. In 14 days we visited Jaipur, Bikaner, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Rohet, Ranakhpur, Udaipur, Bundi, and Ranthambore National Park. Whew! We didn't see any tigers (for which the latter is famous...bummer!), but we did take in a heck of a lot of old forts, museums, city palaces, ancient towns, desert sand, crazy highways (if you can call them that), good food, and yummy masala chai. Hey, we even slurped opium (no joke!) with the local Rajasthani villagers and smoked a bidi (hand-rolled Indian tobacco). That was a fun day. (Don't worry, mom...the opium, when filtered down as a liquid and drunk, merely creates a stimulating sensation, unlike the smoked version, which can really mess with your head.)

We had mixed feelings about our tour. Our driver was lazy, uninspired, constantly lost, and pretty lame. Nevertheless, we made the best of it. A highlight of the journey was a camel ride on the dunes outside of Jaisalmer, just a stone's throw from Pakistan and really out in the middle of nowhere. We watched the sun set over the desert, got our camel driver to run Michael Jackson (our camel) a few times (which was really fun and bouncy), and spent the night at a "luxury" tent resort that was everything I'd hoped our African tent camp safari experience would be but wasn't. Apparently $132 a night buys a lot more in India. We enjoyed several hours of Rajasthani music and dancing; snacks and drinks around the campfire; a huge yummy vegetarian buffet; and a delightfully comfy night of rest in our cozy deluxe tent complete with stone-floored bathroom, Western toilet/shower, and tasteful furnishings in the bedroom. Too bad bliss only reigned for one night.

Cockroaches in our room in Jodhpur forced us to change hotels, only to endure an even dirtier experience at the next dump the local agent ushered us into. Given that it was 10:30pm by the time we'd unpacked, we really had no choice but to hunker down for the night, demand a sheet change, and try our best to ignore the last guest's cigarette butts and body hairs in our bathroom. Lovely. Luckily the next morning, we stood firm with the local agent and demanded to be moved to yet another hotel. After 10 minutes of arguing with him (these businessmen love to lie to you), he had our driver take us to a lovely heritage hotel with beautiful gardens, a great room, amazing dining, and the nicest hotel manager we've met since we arrived in India. We were furious to learn that this great place cost only 100 rupees more than either of the dumps we'd been booked into the night before. They say anything is possible in India, but you sure have to fight hard to get it.

We spent Christmas Eve in the lakeside town of Udaipur, where we met a great German couple named Joe and Sylvia, who were on a similar road trip of their own ripe with problems and hassles. We drank beer together on a rooftop guesthouse restaurant, admired the city palace aglow in evening lights, and shared war stories about our travels thus far. It was a nice way to spend a holiday evening away from home. Too bad our hotel was filled with Indian families who like to leave their room doors open, shout across the hallways to one another, and let their children run amok through the marble-tiled courtyards. That's something about this culture that I really won't miss nor ever really understand. We managed to eek out a decent night's sleep despite the ruckus.

Christmas Day was less eventful and pretty dreary in the small funky town of Bundi, but as fate would have it, we ran into Joe and Sylvia again and had the pleasure of their company at yet another rooftop guesthouse restaurant with an amazing view of the old palace just above us. Another German guy joined us, and our table of five made for a nice holiday celebration. We called our parents afterwards, which made us both insanely homesick but also super happy, then called it a night. No visit from Santa; just a spooky walk out of the old city in the pitch black with no auto rickshaws in sight. We finally found one and were amazed at how eerily quiet India can be when everyone goes home for the night. Just you and the homeless dogs and the endless cows patrolling the streets.

And as I mentioned at the beginning, no tigers! But we did see Asia's largest antelope (the blue bull), a ton of Indian deer, wild boar, a mongoose, monkeys, and lots of cool birds. Save for the drunken hotel managers (who again lied to us like most hotel staff here), we had a decent stay in Ranthambore for two nights before catching an express train back to Delhi. That experience in chair class was much better than our roach-ridden slow train to Agra. Too bad they only offer chair class on a handful of Indian trains. It's a much more civilized way to travel for sure.

Back in Delhi we met with our travel agent and spent several hours sharing our woes. He was pleasant enough, but again, this is India, and he's only so sympathetic to our cause. We had reserved a room last month at a great little hotel in Karol Bagh, the main shopping district, and were happy to see the friendly face of the front desk manager, who remembered us from our August visit. After a quick nap, we struck out for a beer at a local bar we'd seen last time we were in town but never visited, and discovered a hidden little gem. I realized how long it'd been since I'd eaten anything other than chapati and paneer butter masala, or heard Western music, or had readily accessible cold beer, or been greeted by a smiling face at the door. We grubbed on tasty Chinese food, laughed with the restaurant manager, and had a real hot fudge sundae of all things. Rock on, Jade Garden!

But wait! Did I mention the leering men? How could I forget? As a woman, I'm a huge target for ogling, despite wearing baggy blouses, scarves, and no makeup when I go out. But Rajasthan proved really disgusting on this front. I can understand in small villages that many of the people have seen few white folk, but honestly, could you be more obvious about staring at me all of the time, people? Or ignoring the concept of personal space? Or treating me like some animal at the zoo? Unfortunately my tactic of staring back just as blatantly fazed none of them. They just continued to gaze at me with these disturbed, odd, longing looks on their faces. David tried to block and cover but couldn't keep up the game all of the time. After a while, it wears you out to the point where the four walls of your hotel room become more pleasing than sightseeing for the day. Sad but true.

Despite the endless hassles, lies, dirt, poverty, and constant noise, I have mixed emotions about leaving India. There are some truly beautiful, kind people here. There are some amazing historical sites. There are places of seriously holy worship. And dare I say there's almost a method to the madness that goes on here day after day. India really is like no other place on Earth, and I'm glad to have had the chance to experience it. But ironically, I've felt most at peace when surrounded by influences of another culture.

It's in India that I walked in the Buddha's footsteps, toured the hillside community of the Dalai Lama, and got a blessing from the second most powerful Tibetan in the world. Interestingly enough, I'm writing this post from an Internet cafe in Delhi's Tibetan Refugee Camp. In fact, I'm surrounded by Tibetans as I type this, and David is listening to a Tibetan CD we just bought here. We'd discovered this singer while in Lhasa but could never find his album in any of the shops there. It took 10 seconds for a Tibetan woman to locate it on the shelf of a music kiosk here, and five seconds for us to buy it.

And that woman...Yangchen...the reason we're here on our last day, and a really heartwarming story. A few hours after we'd boarded the train from hell in Gaya, I realized that I'd left behind at our guesthouse my new silk mala beads pouch (which I'd just bought the day before at a Tibetan meditation center in Bodh Gaya) and cherished bracelet from Swayambunath temple in Nepal. Doing my best to practice non-attachment as a good Buddhist would, I tried to talk through the missing of these items, the lack of importance they held in the grand scheme of my life, and remind myself that I was lucky and happy to be alive and in one piece, yada, yada, yada. It worked for a while, but then the basic sadness of loss returned.

Later the next day in Agra, I emailed the hotel in Bodh Gaya and asked if there was any way they'd be able to mail the items to my hotel in Delhi. I wasn't expecting much, and I didn't even know if they'd found them in our room, if they'd been stolen, etc. I didn't hear back from the hotel until a week later, and to my surprise, one of the front desk guys we'd befriended wrote back apologizing for his delay in responding. He said they'd been really busy lately but were sending my items back to Delhi on December 24 with a girl who lived at the Tibetan Refugee Camp there. I could pick them up when I arrived back in the city. I was ecstatic. Non-attachment flew out the window. I had a chance to get back some cherished little things that held good spiritual energy for me. I was thrilled!

And that's how we came to be where we are right now. Grateful to have seen a mere speck of this huge crazy nation but excited to move on. Inspired by many of the people we've met but worn out by the actions of others. Moved to tears by the poverty of many but enlightened by the compassion of a cherished few. As the new year approaches, I have much to be thankful for and many things to look forward to. I can only hope that 2008 brings a fraction of the many blessings and wild experiences to which we've been privy so far. This global journey may be more than half over for us, but I know there are many great things yet to come.

Wishing you a year filled with peace, happiness, and open-minded heartfelt bliss!

In the Footsteps of the Buddha

2007-12-07T04:25:00.000-08:00

While I acknowledge that I'm terribly behind on this beloved blog 'o mine, I feel compelled to fast forward us all a few months to the present day and place. Bodh Gaya, Bihar, India. The poorest and most lawless state in the country. We are surrounded by dust-filled streets, extreme poverty, snotty-nosed dirty begging kids everywhere you look. Cows (and their endless piles of shit), goats, buffaloes, and wild pigs roam the streets. Packs of seriously mangy dogs howl throughout the night. Scantily-clad children cry and wail throughout the day. Ancient grandmothers squat in the streets and wave beggars' bowls in your face. Polio-ridden people with severe deformities crawl along the ground asking for help. It's not a pretty sight, so why, might you ask, have we braved a scummy three-hour train ride from the more tourist-friendly (yet still crazy) enclave of Varanasi to subject ourselves to this madness?

The answer is quite simple, but it's one that might amaze you. It's here that, 2,600 years ago, Siddhartha Gautama found enlightenment under the bodhi tree and became known from that point on as the Buddha. The Mahabodhi Temple where this all happened became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2002, and Bodh Gaya now yearly welcomes thousands of pilgrims (many of them Tibetan) who flock here from October to March to pay homage to this holy religion.

Monks of all ages, sexes, races, and colors abound. They sit snuggly in pairs atop bicycle rickshaws, pile out in masses from rusty auto rickshaws, share space with us at Internet cafes checking their email (so Western of them!), and a few even ride their own bikes, sporting hip sunglasses and talking on cell phones as they go. It's an odd sight to see, but a comforting one as well.

Amid all this "monk-y business," as we call it, shiny new tour buses (so out of place in India!) shuttle smartly dressed Thai, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese tourists to the endless plethora of temples. A few daring Westerners (including us) brave the noisy, dirty streets on foot. It's hard to believe such peace and spirituality exist amid such squalor. We're continually amazed by what our eyes take in and our minds find so difficult to process. The entire scene is a canvas of contrasts, and we are but a few of the subjects roaming among it struggling to find a glimmer of hope in a desperate spot on the map.

I knew India would be hard, but I don't think I expected what we've come to experience this past week. Varanasi was quite tame, despite its reputation. Perhaps that's because we'd spent all of November in Nepal, which I call "India light." Nepal seems a bit more civilized and certainly less crowded. We'd endured an afternoon in Kathmandu at Pashupati, the holiest Hindu temple in the country, and witnessed body upon body burning atop cremation pyres. You know that horrible smell when a few rogue hairs get caught in the blow dryer? Multiply that by about 1,000, and that's Pashupati. The Nepalese think nothing of it, but it's certainly a shock to the Westerner's mentality. Oddly serene despite the main event, that area prepared us well for Varanasi's burning ghats. We barely blinked an eye as we passed by a flaming mass one afternoon, and I clearly could make out the face and head of a charred human being. We didn't stay long.

Our three days in Varanasi were enjoyable, save for me getting sick on the second night, a massive sinus infection that I'm still battling. I can't seem to stay healthy on this leg of our journey, having just recovered in mid-November from a nasty cold in Nepal that even delayed our trek by a few days. After eight miserable days suffering here in India, I have succumbed to antibiotics and reluctantly am putting my faith in Western medicine. The salt water snorting and disgusting grapefruit seed extract just weren't able to complete the job.

Sometimes on this trip, we've been left with no other choice but to turn to the hard drugs, which is a serious challenge to our holistic views. We felt a low point the other day in Bodh Gaya when we purchased paper face masks, akin to the type surgeons wear on duty. The dust, dirt, and pollution here is overwhelming, and we're not alone when we wander the streets with masks on now. Just about every monk and tourist in the know sport them.

So back to Varanasi. We strolled along the famous Ganges, took in more crazy sights than we can process, and David even got his hand on a cricket bat, smacking his first pitch out of the "ballpark." The local kids cheered him on quite loudly, and we had a good laugh. We almost got run down by mad cows in the dark alleys; Molly got a tika from a funky sadhu at the Golden Temple; we watched a man grab a feather from a dirty street and jam it excitedly in his ear (Q-tips anyone?); we tried the local raw water chestnuts (and didn't get sick!) from the street market while rats roamed around the vendor's feet; and perhaps in our most daunting feat, survived the one-hour cab ride from the airport into town despite a non-working horn in the taxi and a seriously snarky young driver who tried to literally take us for a wild ride. David quickly told him he was messing with the wrong people. I chuckled. At first we enjoyed the serenity of no honking, but we quickly realized that despite being peaceful, it's downright dangerous in this country. I couldn't help but laugh, though, as we puttered along at a snail's pace behind bicycle rickshaws we couldn't pass because our driver couldn't hoot them out of his way. He would pound on the steering wheel in frustration while David and I just smiled slyly from the back seat of the cushy Ambassador.

We spent our last day there in Sarnath, where the Buddha gave his first sermon after attaining enlightenment. Who woulda thunk all this cool stuff happened here in this dust bowl of a region? You really do have to see it to believe it. We toured a few historic sites, wandered around the zoo (which sadly consists of a few scaly, near-death crocodiles and some small caged birds), strolled through a local village among plenty of staring faces, ate a decent late lunch at a local restaurant, prayed at the Tibetan temple, and yes, yet again, David managed to get in on a local cricket game, this one transpiring in the front yard of a Thai temple, much to the delight of a squealing gang of local boys. Baseball season might be over, but the spirit lives on in my dear husband.

Now on to Bodh Gaya. We braved our first Indian train ride and felt lucky that the Purattasham Express was only 35 minutes late that day. Other trains were three, four, or even seven hours delayed. Egads! And to think that only the day after we rode that slow boat to Gaya, masked bandits robbed that exact train on the exact leg we were on, and stabbed several people in the process of stealing their possessions. We've been told that our return trip from Gaya to Agra on Dec. 11 is on a safe section of railway, but I'll believe it when I'm happily sipping masala chai in front of the famed Taj Mahal. Please wish us luck.

We were crammed into 3AC, the cheapest class, with a seriously gross Russian couple who couldn't keep their hands off each other, and two Indian men who insisted on carrying on a cross-compartment conversation with another guy who perched on someone else's bunk across the aisle. The result was non-stop Hindi chatter for three hours and disgusting public displays of affection from a few skanky Slavs. Thank God we were only on board for a short while.

We quickly found an auto rickshaw to transport us the 30 minutes to Bodh Gaya but were dismayed when the driver took off with seven of his closest friends hanging all over the vehicle. We made three stops along the way to drop off and pick up more unannounced Indians. When we got to the guesthouse we'd requested, we found two local guys who spoke enough English to let our driver know in no uncertain terms that we weren't going to pay the agreed 100 rupees to play public taxi for the afternoon. He could either take our generous donation of 50 rupees, or call it a day: We weren't going along with the scam. After a few rounds of raised voices back and forth, he cracked a smile and accepted the grungy bill David handed him.

The guesthouse proved nightmarish, as the construction both inside and out that was promised to halt by 5:00pm was still going strong at 8:30 that night. As I was sick, I dearly needed my sleep, and David had to ask the manager three times to cut the band saws and hammering. Luckily we'd found a better guesthouse before dinner, and planned to move there the next morning. By some strange twist of fate, the manager of the offending place agreed with us the next morning that we shouldn't have to pay full price and that he wasn't honest when we checked in. To our surprise, he even gave us a conciliatory "sorry" on our way out. That's a first in India. People here rarely like to admit when they don't know something, or they've made a mistake, or both. We felt victorious in more ways than just our wallet.

We love, love, love the Mahayana Hotel where we're currently holed up for the week. Run by Tibetans, it's a pretty decent abode as far as Indian standards go, and has the added blessing of hosting many famous monks and lamas over the years. I believe it was even blessed by the Dalai Lama himself and is named after the sect of Tibetan Buddhism that His Holiness follows. We feel at home in this place and have befriended the kind front desk staff during our stay. There are usually a few monks hanging around the lobby when we retire for the evening, which is a nice way to retire each night.

We spend our days sleeping late, touring the endless temples (just about every country with a Buddhist culture has at least one temple here), sitting in meditation, sketching and writing in the shadow of the famed Bodhi tree, and even getting a blessing from one of the most revered Tibetan lamas, His Holiness the Seventeenth Gyalwa Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, who happens to be here in Bodh Gaya for several months. We had planned to visit him in Dharamsala a few months ago but ran out of time, so we consider his presence here to be most auspicious. He's intensely connected to the Dalai Lama and bravely managed to escape in 2000 from Tibet to India when he was only 14 years old.

Despite being very interested in Buddhism, I had no idea what this lama looked like or how such a blessing by him would be bestowed, so when our turn came to offer our kata (white scarf) to the monks, I handed it over to the first monk in line, who placed it around my neck. I then bypassed the money-donation-receiving monk (no offense intended but we just weren't in a rupee-giving mood that day) and was then handed a red silk cord by another monk. Thinking these guys had to be the assistants and I still had more to go in the "ceremony," I trotted off in search of a more ancient-looking, austere holy man. To my dismay, I was ushered downstairs with the rest of the common folk, and I emerged dejected on the lawn to find David. Still wondering what had just transpired, I asked him, "Which one was the main guy? Did I miss something? What just happened in there?" David shrugged and figured we must have had an unknowing moment of sublime spiritual attention showered upon us. I was still confused, though. "Who was the holy man? Maybe he's not here today. Maybe those guys were just stand-ins?" Untrue to my Buddhist self, I figured there had to be more bells and whistles associated with this blessing thing.

We walked back to town, still perplexed but treasuring the holy red cord around my neck and my now-blessed kata. We stumbled upon the Burmese temple on our way back and decided to leave our katas there upon the Buddha in offering to a country that could use a few blessings these days. When we got back to the hotel, our beloved front desk friends asked for my help in editing an English announcement they were making about the Karmapa's public appearance the following day. Seeing this as a perfect entry into asking a most embarrassing question, I shyly said to one of the Tibetans, "You know, we got a blessing today from His Holiness, but I'm not sure which guy he was." The man just shook his head and laughed. "You don't know what the Karmapa looks like?" No, I replied sheepishly. I assumed he was rather old. "No, he's quite young, in fact, with glasses." Ah, so that was him, I mused.

I think now, in reviewing the website above, that the monk who placed the kata around my neck is indeed one of the most holy Buddhists alive today. Sadly, I wasn't very present during the entire five-second event, but today I'm much more at peace with the experience. Bodh Gaya has a way of doing that to a person: Putting you in a place of serious introspection, allowing divine wisdom and grace to take over when the most human of efforts fails. It's okay that I was blessed but didn't recognize the blessing. It's okay that I'm now wearing that shiny red cord as a bracelet because it's more at home there than dangling around my neck. It's okay that I haven't completely arrived on my path to enlightenment. In fact, I have a long, long way to go.

I still have much work to do on this planet, and Bodh Gaya is just one more stop along the journey. Albeit, it's probably the most amazing destination (save for Lhasa) in which I've ever plopped myself down. Perhaps I'll catch a glimpse of the Karmapa on the street today. It could happen; his sister walked out of our hotel lobby this morning in my presence, and now I at least have an idea of what he looks like. As the locals all like to remind us, "Anything is possible in India."

From Addis to Amritsar to Ayutthaya...

2007-11-02T22:46:00.000-07:00

Well, at the risk of being even more behind in this neglected blog, I figured I owed everyone at least a recap of the last several months before bringing you up to current speed. As it stands, I'll still have a few more posts to add before I can join you in real time now, but I guess this is better than nothing. It's amazing how tough it is to find time or space to write in some of the places we've been lately.

Back in late July, we said a tearful goodbye to Kenya after a surprisingly wonderful month there, and headed a bit reluctantly to Ethiopia. We weren't expecting much, and that was a good thing. Despite reports that Addis Ababa was on the rise, it's still a depressingly dreary, backwards, dust- and poverty-ridden city. I sadly doubt that will change for many years to come.

We'd braved a trip to Ethiopia with the express purpose of doing the northern tourist circuit, which includes stops in Bahir Dar, Gonder, and Lalibela, the latter known for its famous 13-century rock-hewn churches. Sadly, after several frustrating visits to Ethiopian Airlines, the only carrier for these towns, we discovered it would take a total of seven flights on small planes to make this circuit doable. To get to Lalibela, the most desired on our list, we'd have to stop twice in the former two places. Didn't sound like a fun or safe way to travel, and taking a bus overland was even riskier: Unsafe and two days to reach a destination not so far away...ugh. So we made the tough decision to skip these destinations, save our sanity, try to make the best of Addis, and leave early for India. (The fact that we have no pictures to show from our week in Ethiopia says a lot: It honestly felt too risky to wander the streets with a camera around our necks.)

A few nice surprises cropped up in this strange city. We treated ourselves to an afternoon at a really nice day spa, of all things, getting our first massages in four months. David also got a much-needed haircut, and I got a much-needed pedicure. That was nice, albeit a big Western-style "splurge." Then we ate early dinner at a very Western cafe that rocked (our first real sandwich in four months, with chicken salad, ricotta, and caramelized onions...go figure). Of course, that delightful experience was quickly relegated to the past as we awoke the next day, braved the crowds at Ethiopian Airlines, re-ticketed to leave early, and then took our first minibus (where you ride for 15 cents with about 12-14 other Ethiopians) to the outdoor Merkato, supposedly the largest in Africa. Let me tell you, THAT is an experience like no other...makes Cairo look like NYC. We lasted about an hour before two attempted pickpocketings - including one guy who grabbed my arm 10x harder than any angry parent ever would - sent us in search of a minivan out of there. I screamed at the guy and he ran off, but it was wacky. Similar to Marrakech, when the dancing hawker whacked me on the arm with a big tin plate. That hurt, too.

But we survived to tell about it. I pet a goat, smiled at a few donkeys, made it through massive amounts of mud and rocks and water without slipping, and managed to find a minibus back to the general proximity of our hotel, where we proceeded to fight with the front desk about our checkout date. Sorted that out finally, but even so, the place is pretty dingy and you'd probably want plastic on the chairs in the room before you sit down, but hey...this is Ethiopia. About 10 years ago everyone here was either killing each other or starving or both, so you can't ask for much.

I am weary, though...weary of the looks, the lack of smiles, the poverty, the dirt, the funky food that makes my system upset, the misunderstandings, the lack of belief in the concept that the customer is always right...and somehow, I think things will get better in India. I fear I'm in for a big surprise.

But oh, how Delhi delighted us in so many ways! Despite being bleary eyed after another lovely red eye, we alit in Delhi around 8am and were kindly greeted by a driver from our hotel, who shuffled us into the cushy back seat of an old Ambassador, and off we went. WE LOVE IT HERE! It's a mix of the urban development of Bangkok (yes, you read that correctly) and the crazy, colonial character of Hanoi. Our hotel is great and in the heart of the Karol Bagh district, which is the main shopping area: Think street vendors and tons of little shops, and it's ALWAYS chaotic except in early morning when things are shut down. But it's HONK, HONK, HONK even if there's nothing to honk at.

That said, we really enjoyed it. A nice breath of fresh air (literally, if you can believe that) from East Africa. That shows you how backwards things were there (even in Kenya, despite our love of the country). We ended up (long story) meeting a tour agent, who booked us a driver and car for a 16-day tour of Himachal Pradesh and Punjab states. As an added bonus for our booking, he gave us a free day tour of Delhi by private car. We saw great sights and got a good introduction to this massive sprawling city. The next day we ventured out on our own via the subway to the old quarter, and what a change! This is the India I've read about...packed dusty streets full of rickshaws and vendors, people scrambling every which way, dark alleys beckoning you in. A visit to the Red Fort rounded out that experience.

On the way to a restaurant near our hotel one night (where we ate dinner like kings for a total of $3.50!), we found a homeless mama dog with about eight brand-new puppies curled up in a disgusting park. I got my rescue hat on, and we found a department store (yes!) and got them to give us a large box for the dog. We then figured she needed food and water, so we went to the nearby McDonald's (double yes) and ordered two chicken burgers (remember they don't serve beef here) for only $1 total, and got two free cups of water to go with it...score! We then took this all back to the mama dog, who was scared but thrilled. We got quite a few looks from the locals, but then it was almost dark so we left. But oddly, the box, the dog, and all the puppies were gone the next day, so we're a little worried that someone did something bad, but at least we did what we could.

Leaving Delhi was a serious trip in itself. In 16 days we explored the Himachal Pradesh hill towns of Shimla, Manali, McLeod Ganj (just outside Dharamsala and home to the Dalai Lama), and Dalhousie, and then ventured west to glorious Amritsar in Punjab, home to the famous Sikh Golden Temple. Too much transpired on that journey to include in this blog, so you'll just have to wait for the book. :-) We thoroughly enjoyed all of the locations and had a lot of great days just exploring and soaking up the local cultures. McLeod Ganj is a huge Tibetan refugee outpost, and our few hours spent at the Tibetan Children's Village there were a highlight of the entire journey. Sadly the Dalai Lama was teaching in Ladakh and not in residence, but I'm committed to getting an audience with him one of these days. Also sitting during prayer inside Amritsar's Golden Temple on the pond was extremely spiritual. So many beautiful colors and sounds whirling around in there.

We bid India a short goodbye (knowing we'd return in late November for a month or so) and headed out on yet another red eye, this time to our favorite SE Asian city: Bangkok, baby! We arrived safely and were so happy to be back. It's very refreshing and a bit eerie to be transported to such an exotic, faraway place that feels like home. I guess we really are world travelers, especially when you consider that the hotel where we'd stayed in Jan. '06 had reserved the exact same room we had 1.5 years ago and even still had us in their system with our old address. Too funny! When we first came to Bangkok in Nov. '05, we hated it: The smells, the traffic, the pollution, the heat, the sounds. But after having been in places like Cairo and Addis, this wacky city now takes on an angelic sort of glow.

In our first seven hours back in the Land of Smiles, we lived a complete deja vu. We'd just walked a few blocks down Silom Rd. near our hotel, and I said, "Hey, there's where I got my pedicure last year, that's where you got your haircut, there's our 7/11, I remember that front desk guy, etc." Too funny! Little comforts like that go a long way after where we've been lately.

Having done the typical tourist circuit last time we visited, we opted to chill out a lot this time around, often frequenting the plethora of slick, modern, fabulously air-conditioned malls complete with their massively tasty food courts, killer gelato, and multiplex cinemas. We also got our share of Thai massage almost nightly.

We did take a great day trip out to the former capital of Ayutthaya, where we rented bikes and rode around ancient temples, eating pad Thai from a street vendor and riding the 3rd-class local train with the rest of Thailand. We also took a great walking tour of the less-visited Thonburi neighborhood on the other side of the Chao Praya River. We toured a great temple there where we fed fish and turtles hunks of funky sausage on sticks, then sat at another temple in front of the largest golden Buddha I've seen to date. I never tire of watching Thailand's saffron-clad monks wandering the streets or sharing a standing-room only space with me on the ferry boats that ply the river.

Next stop was China: Were we prepared for the Communist land of long-lost Mao? The endless coughing and street spitting? The throngs of people? The Szechwan food that burns your lips? The world's dirtiest public toilets? Only time would tell...

My True Calling

2007-08-15T23:31:00.000-07:00

Back in Nairobi after safari, we contemplated our next move. We were feeling the draw toward the coast and longed to explore Kenya's beaches. We'd heard Lamu was nice but expensive; Malindi pretty but overrun with Westerners; and Mombasa more developed and touristy. After several trips to a travel agent we'd befriended downtown, we still weren't sure it was the "vacation" we wanted. (Is there such a thing as "vacation" when you're traveling for this long? I think not...but I digress.)

After several meetings in Henry's agency, we'd narrowed it down to several Mombasa beach resorts for an 11-day adventure due to cost and travel considerations. Lamu was proving to be expensive to fly, Zanzibar followed as a close second in this regard, and thus Mombasa became the buzz word. But something wasn't really jiving with me about it.

A few weeks earlier I'd caught wind, thanks to Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree forum, of a volunteer center named Takatifu Gardens operating in remote western Kenya. The place was run by Quakers who'd built a community center in a small village near Kakamega, and were looking for people to come help them teach English in primary schools. They also did work with a nearby orphanage. The opportunity sounded challenging, low-maintenance, and just what David and I had envisioned for part of our time in Africa. We'd left the States with a goal to put ourselves to good use in countries that needed it most. No one could argue that Kenya was one of those places.

I had emailed Fran, one of the leaders of the center, and started my inquiry before we'd even arrived in the country. Were there a lot of bugs? What was the toilet situation? How would we get there? How much did it cost? What exactly would we be doing with the kids? My questions were lengthy, but Fran proved diplomatic and even downright nice from the get go. I thought this might be the perfect opportunity for us to put ourselves to really good use in a country that desperately needed our help.

As the days wore on, and we grew weary of Nairobi, David could sense the debate running rampant in my head. We would leave Henry's office after another round of discussions on the best poolside offerings and resort packages in Mombasa, and try as I might, I couldn't really embrace the idea of luxuriating on a beach. "I can tell your heart isn't in it, honey," said my astute husband. "You want to go to Takatifu, right?" He'd nailed it on the head, known it all along, but he could see the fear in my eyes. "It's the bus ride that's holding you back, huh?" Yep, I nodded, a big lump in my throat.

Who wouldn't be a bit gun shy after enduring a week plus on Kenya's dusty, bumpy, mostly unpaved roads? We'd been back four days from safari, and my internal organs still hadn't shifted back to their original positions. We'd witnessed countless overloaded matatus (Kenya's decrepit, horribly unsafe version of the minibus) hurtling towards us in attempts to pass big rigs on crowded "highways." We'd swerved to avoid donkeys and any other creatures that wandered along the roadside. We'd been hassled several times by the ever-so-corrupt police at roadside "checkpoints." Driving in Kenya wasn't a fun or relaxing experience, and if it were that traumatic in a private safari minivan, I shuddered to envision what a public bus would be like.

Worry aside, we made the bold choice to ditch the sun and sand and instead brave the way to the countryside to put ourselves to good use for a week. I can tell you now it was the best decision I've ever made, not to mention the most rewarding experience of my life. The bus, despite being over an hour late and arriving nine hours later at our destination, wasn't so bad, but it was downright scary at times. Those crazy drivers can do unimaginable things with a rumbling large vehicle over a lot of red dirt. We were the only Westerners on board. Somehow this endeared us to our Kenyan neighbors; we got a lot of smiles and shared cookies with the kids. We befriended a local who kindly let us use his cell phone to alert Fran and his wife, Kim, of our delayed arrival.

When we arrived in Khayega near the only gas station in town (our pre-established meeting point), it had been raining for the last hour and the sun had sadly set. I can't describe what I felt as the driver pulled up to the side of the road and announced this was our drop-off point. David eeked out a small grin, I grabbed my pack and hoped for the best. We were the only white people amid a see of dark African faces along a remote rural road in even remoter western Kenya. It was pitch black outside. We felt vulnerable, and rightly so. But no sooner had we alit from the bus than Fran and Kim approached with a friendly, "Hello!" and we were whisked off to the safety of the Land Cruiser.

It's now the beginning of October while I write this entry (so far behind!), but the memory of our eight days there in July is so fresh in my mind. Our time in Shinyalu, Kenya, was awesome, life-changing, emotional, rewarding, and a thousand other adjectives I won't list here. Our Takatifu friends are Fran and Kim, a seriously nice and fun Australian couple who run the place; Ulrike, an inquisitive warm German woman; Casey, a funny outgoing dude from Texas; Karl and Rosie, a Kenyan brother and sister with the warmest smiles you've even seen; and Gidi, a Kenyan guy who never made us stop laughing.

These people are awesome, and we truly felt part of a community while we lived there. We shared meals, stories, and games together, and respected each other's quiet times. When we weren't working with the kids, we put ourselves to good use bettering the community center. I started in on weeding, which I loved despite the bugs, while David employed his art school talent to paint both door signs for our rooms and the larger project of the handicapped bathroom. I helped him out with the bathroom when I'd finished my gardening projects, and together, we put on a pretty mean three coats of what we dubbed "African cream" over the course of a few days.

On our second-to-last day there, 21 kids from an orphanage in Kakamega came to Takatifu Gardens for a day of fun. One of the little girls, Lilian, is only four but HIV positive--not uncommon in Africa but tough to swallow. You hear about these kids on Oprah or in the American news, but you don't really grasp the concept of their pain until you look at their faces and see it first-hand. This little angel has suffered so much in such a short time, and I could see it in her eyes as she sat in a chair next to me.

I watched her for a long while, a blank look on her face, until she caught sight of a group of ladies walking down the dirt road near the soccer field where we'd gone to play games (and of course, soccer!). Once the women caught sight of her, you knew something was up. They came running over smiling from ear to ear; one of the women scooped Lilian up in her arms. I asked Elizabeth, the social worker with us, what was going on. She responded that these ladies were all close friends of Lilian's mother before she died of AIDS. They recognized Lilian because she used to live in this village near the soccer field. The tears welled up in my eyes in an instant. You could feel the love pouring out from these women into this little child, and you could feel this little child light up from their hugs and kisses. Familiar faces meant so much.

It wasn't long before I witnessed another moving moment. Lilian's grandmother--poor, uneducated, and unable to care for Lilian--arrived at the soccer field. Lilian's face lit up once again as she was showered by love from a familiar person. I felt my tears coming yet again. To see this woman embrace her grandchild, knowing that she, too, had lost her own child--this child's mother--was heartbreaking and almost more than I could take. How to get through this supposedly happy day without feeling completely miserable and bogged down by the sadness of it all? It's one of the intense challenges Africa posed, and a dilemma I'll never quite understand.

Elizabeth told me that one of the orphanage's goals is to teach existing family members how to care for these children so they can stay with them for several weeks during the year. It's the orphanage's goal to keep these kids connected to whatever family remains whenever possible. For Lilian, it's a difficult task, as caring for an HIV-positive child in rural Africa presents a host of challenges. The grandmother has to be taught to give Lilian her daily meds, and to cook her meals that keep her healthy and won't upset her immune system. Tough to do when you're uneducated and live in a mud hut with no electricity and scant money.

David and I were particularly moved by the story of another boy, 10-year-old Eugene, a street kid who showed up at Takatifu one night homeless and hungry. His father had been arrested for murder, although we hear it was a fight where he hit another man, who fell and hit his head and then died as a result of his injuries. Now Eugene's village and relatives have disowned him; in western Kenya, it's customary to banish from the village the remaining relatives of a murderer. It doesn't matter that you're only 10 with nowhere to go and no one to care for you. Eugene miraculously found Takatifu, who in turn searched out this orphanage where he now lives. That's how Takatifu made the connection to Carmel, the orphanage director, who's really more of an angel than an administrative person. An aboriginal woman in her 70s from Australia, she's a true "everywoman" who's given these kids a new lease.

At the soccer field it was mostly the boys who played ball (David was in heaven, having been away from sports for so long) while the girls jumped rope. I talked forever with Carmel, and boy, did she have stories to tell. We walked back to Takatifu along the village road and got quite a few stares. But after being there all week in rural western Kenya, it didn't bother me anymore. In fact, it felt like we lived and belonged there...so cool!

We fed the kids a huge rice-and-beans-and-greens lunch, which they gobbled down, then most of them watched a movie on Fran's laptop. I went outside after a bit, and most of the girls (ages 4-12) were sitting outside bored in the sun. I went back inside to check with Casey to see if we had any art supplies. When he nodded "yes," I returned to ask the girls if they'd like to draw. The answer was a resounding YES! So I gathered up the scraps of paper I could find and the half-sharpened pencils and dying pens, and they were happy as clams. A few of the boys even joined in.

It was a sight to see, these poor kids sitting on the edge of the planter boxes in the hot African sun, using their knees and hands as bases for holding their paper, barely able to squeak ink out of the pen or pencil but creating images nonetheless. It made me think of all the excess toys and "things" most kids in the U.S. have, and I just got really emotional seeing these poor kids so appreciative of the barest of art supplies. They could teach all of us a lesson about gratitude, believe me.

I became enamored with two sisters, Rosy (7) and Stella (10), whom I was considering adopting were it not for the fact that (a) Adopting kids in Kenya is really tough, as the government is rife with corruption, extorts money from Westerners (it's supposed to cost $6,000 per child but can go as high as $50,000!), and it can take two years to sort out; (b) David would like to start with younger kids and raise them earlier, which I can understand; and (c) We are still traveling for a while, and I'm not sure where I'd stow two small Kenyan children in our backpacks. Ah, such obstacles!

I can't even begin to describe how those eight days has changed me (and us). I was so at peace in that jungle village, even despite having to shower from boiled water in a bucket; dealing with the horrible smell and dirt of pit toilets; and fighting off some bugs at times (although not many). Not to mention that life in rural Africa is, well, downright DIFFERENT!!! In hindsight, these things pale in comparison to what we received in the way of an amazing life-altering experience.

The Kenyan government only recently made primary education free. Prior to that action, most children in rural areas couldn't afford to attend school. Now with it being more accessible, schools are teeming with smiling, inquisitive kids who, for the most part, really want to learn. Sadly you also witness things such as a 15-year-old tall, skinny boy crammed into a class of little eight-year-olds, because he was never able to attend school before then and can't place into a higher class with kids his age.

It's not unusual for schools to have 750-1,200 students, with classes averaging 70 students per teacher. Top that off with the rustic conditions of the classrooms--thatched roofs, rats running around, primitive desks, and limited supplies, and you've got quite a challenge before you. In just three days we helped over 2,500 kids with their English reading...quite an accomplishment! I never tired of hearing little Kenyans read aloud, "A fat man stands to rrrub his rrribs," and smiled every time at the way they rolled their Rs with an African lilt. It was truly music to my ears.

So today, as I sit in an air-conditioned Internet cafe in Bangkok, amid the comforts of a Westernized, southeast Asian society (believe me, after where we've been these last six+ months, Bangkok is a breath of civilized fresh air), I'm reminded of our dear friends in little Shinyalu, who are with me in my heart more often than they probably know.

I miss them, I miss the friendships we made, I miss the kids, I miss being of service, and more than anything, I miss the feeling of pure bliss I experienced in finding my true calling. Save for the six-day silent meditation retreat I did several months after David and I were married, I've never felt more alive and free and in touch with my true self than when I spent those eight great days in western Kenya. Someday I will go back. And maybe we'll even adopt a child...or two...or three...

Sure as Kilimanjaro Rises...

2007-08-15T20:51:00.000-07:00

If we were hesitant to arrive in Cairo, that anticipatory worry multiplied tenfold with our looming flight to Kenya. The bustling capital of Nairobi, or as it's commonly referred to as "Nairobbery," is a city struggling to weave its way into modernity and calm. That effort, however, is plagued by a continually corrupt government (although things have improved during Kibaki's presidential reign); close to 40 indigenous tribes struggling for power; a frightening Mungiki gang that had beheaded several bus drivers just days before our arrival; deplorable poverty in notorious slums (read more about Kibera); regular post-sunset muggings of both locals and tourists; and worst of all, an "explosion" (which we would call a bombing) on busy Moi Avenue that went off the week before we were scheduled to touch down. We almost cancelled our trip and diverted our attention to a more deserving nation, but after several days of debate and research, we decided to give Kenya a chance, despite its shady reputation.

What a delight awaited us! Sure, there's a lot for the eyes to absorb, and it wears heavy on your heart at times. But Kenya never ceased to amaze and enchant us...with its national pride, its mind boggling wildlife inventory, its lovely diverse landscapes, and most of all, its ever-friendly people. Most Kenyans speak very good English, and their calm demeanors and smiling faces won us over day after day. We spent a month here and felt grateful to have had that amount of time to devote to a much-misunderstood country. If you peel back a few gritty layers, this nation reveals a beautiful inner side probably lost on most safari-only-bound holiday makers.

We holed up in a really nice business-style hotel in the prestigious Upper Hill neighborhood for the duration of our time in Nairobi. We felt a bit luxurious, but it was worth the splurge considering the above issues I highlighted. Located down the street from the Israeli embassy, our digs were heavily guarded by armed military folks in full camo duds toting huge machine guns, not to mention multiple road checkpoints with metal gates barring vehicle entry. The hotel itself had three key card entry points before you even reached your room. The level of security was a bit absurd if you ask me, but at least we could come and go knowing we were well protected. A sign posted just down the road even bragged about the high level of protection. "Welcome to Nairobi's safest street" greeted us daily and boasted two caricatures of smiling faces (as if we needed more assurance).

We spent our first few days seeking out and interviewing safari operators, as getting out into the parks and game reserves was our main purpose for being there. Struggling with lingering food poisoning compliments of Egypt, I had a tough time enduring it all. But luckily after the first day, with an emergency bathroom stop at an office building happy to oblige me their surprisingly decent toilet, and with a few Cipro under my belt, I was on the rebound. The weather was much cooler (delightful after Luxor's sweltering heat!), which made doing business here more pleasant. After grueling hours of meetings, and recovering from the initial shock of the high cost of this kind of adventure, we settled on an outfitter and packed for our June 22 departure to Tanzania. 11 days in the bush awaited, and we were eager to go!

The shuttle bus to Arusha was an experience in itself. I don't know where I got the impression that Kenya would have four-lane paved, divided highways. I soon realized I was sadly mistaken in my expectations and that the modernity we'd enjoyed in Nairobi ended once you left the heart of the city. The drive, which was roughly 158 miles long, took almost six hours. We sat in pollution-choking traffic on the road to Mombasa, then endured pothole after pothole once we headed south to the border. Swerving to avoid donkeys, Masai herdsmen with their cattle, and numerous trucks coming head-on into our lane, our driver kept the peddle to the metal and gave us the scare of a lifetime. When we finally arrived in neighboring Tanzania, I was ready to call the whole thing off. Luckily, the trip improved dramatically from the comfort of our 4WD safari jeep and our excellent driver/guide Steven. He introduced himself with a smile, helped us load our packs into the vehicle, handed us a box lunch, and headed out for the drive to Lake Manyara.

Spotting my first giraffe and zebra from the highway is something I won't forget in this lifetime. You can see these animals in zoos (as an animal lover, I was a big fan of zoos before coming to Africa, but it just doesn't compare to watching them roam the wild landscape, plucking leaves from acacia trees or nestling each other on the plains of a volcanic crater. In lieu of the popular road trip games we play in the States, David and I quickly settled into little contests of who could spot the first critter from the jeep.

East Africa delivers big time on wildlife viewing, and we saw everything except the elusive black rhino. Considering there are no guarantees when you sign up for one of these things, I think that's pretty impressive. We spent three nights in Tanzania, taking in two game drives in Lake Manyara National Park (where, among other incredible sights, we watched a leopard in a tree devour a bush buck) and two days in the Ngorongoro Crater, which is probably one of the most amazing places on Earth. As part of the Serengeti ecosystem, the opportunities for wildlife viewing abound here, and the setting is like nothing we've ever seen.

Thousands of animals are packed into the floor of this sunken volcano, and it's really, in a nutshell, so cool. You drive down a steep dirt road into the bowl and spend hours cruising the plains amid a plethora of wildlife. We feel blessed to have watched two cheetahs stalk an impala for half an hour before setting in on the chase and the speedy kill. Watching it all transpire in a matter of seconds at close range, I can now vouch that they really are the fastest mammals on land. Earlier that day, we had squatted in disbelief to pee among a herd of onlooking zebra...how wild is that? (Our guide tentatively let us out of the jeep but warned us to stay hidden lest a park ranger spot us out in the open.) We also really enjoyed our one-night stay at the crater's wildlife lodge perched on the rim. Our room looked out on the animals grazing at night and provided insane views during daylight, plus good food and entertainment from a Tanzanian dance troupe.

We sadly bid farewell to Tanzania too soon and headed back to the Namanga border, where our Kenyan driver/guide, Felix, collected us for our next eight days. We visited Amboseli National Park (beneath the shadow of mighty Kilimanjaro), a unique tree lodge at the base of Mt. Kenya, Lake Nakuru National Park (famous for its throngs of pink flamingos), Lake Baringo, Lake Bogoria, and the infamous Masai Mara. We witnessed lions up close quite a few times; tons (literally) of elephants, zebras, and wildebeest grazing in the distance from our patio at the Ol Tukai Lodge in Amboseli; my favorite, the hippo (although not as close nor as many as I would have liked ); a teen leopard in a tree right above our minivan in Nakuru, along with incredible numbers of white rhino; quite a few giraffes, which we both love; all of the requisite antelopes save the kudu (my favorite is the topi); and plenty of other creatures as well.

It's amazing how you lose track of time out on the plains or overland for 9+ hours in a minivan. On this trip we experienced more of Kenyan transportation inefficiency than we ever care to endure again. The road between Narok and Naivasha--on the way to the famed Masai Mara and back--was particularly bad. It took us over an hour to go only 20 miles, most of it on half-dirt/half-potholed stretches of "highway," with screaming trucks whizzing by, and more dust up your nose and on your clothes than you could stomach in two lifetimes--and that with the windows closed. Sad to think that this is the main drag for big rigs carrying important cargo from Mombasa all the way into Uganda. To add insult to injury, it had rained both nights in the Mara, which is really dangerous as nothing is paved, so you're literally skidding along in a minivan (with no 4WD, mind you) hoping you don't get stuck in a mud hole or washed away in a river somewhere.

Our guide/driver was a bit daring at times. At one point in the Mara, we had to abandon the van just outside of our campsite and wade about 25 feet through some puddles and mud to the dining hut. Then the next morning, we took 1.5 hours to get out of the Mara, at times driving literally through pools of water so large they splashed over the top of the van, obscuring the entire windshield and practically flooding out the transmission. Like I said, I'm done with overland travel in Kenya if I can help it (famous last words, as you'll discover).

Several outfitters told us not to bother going the distance to the Serengeti, as we'd see the same stuff in the Masai Mara, which in hindsight was a mistake. There were hardly any animals in the Mara, and we would have preferred more time with our fun Tanzanian driver/guide. Steven was much more personable and interesting than Felix, who was more of a driver than a guide. At times this Kenyan guy had the personality and physical resemblance of Barry Bonds (think dull and aloof) coupled with the funky demeanor of Snoop Dogg (think dopey and irreverent). Hindsight, as we all know, is always 20/20.

Animals aside, two highlights of a human nature will stick with me for a long time: Having our photos taken at stunning Lake Bogoria for almost an hour with hundreds of 10- and 11-year-old wide-eyed school kids on field trip from northwestern Kenya (the opening photo of this blog); and a two-hour tour of a Masai Mara village given by the locals. Our Masai guide, Alex, knew I liked cows, so he suggested we walk back to our campsite as the young boys were taking the massive herds out to graze for the afternoon. It's an awesome experience to stand in the middle of an African field with about 200 cattle lumbering toward you amid whooping chants of tribal natives prodding them with spears. Doubt you'd see that in America any time soon.

Thus our African safari, despite being problematic at times (I've chosen to spare you the really gritty details) and ridiculously expensive, was a big success. We returned to Nairobi exhausted, inspired, and ready to take on our next challenge. Little did I know that that next adventure would be an experience that would really change my life.

P.S.--I found this paragraph from Wikipedia truly inspiring and very telling of the current issues facing Kenya, most notably in the area of education:

In November 2004, in an ABC PrimeTime interview with Peter Jennings, former US President Bill Clinton identified [President] Kibaki as the one living person he would most like to meet "because of the Kenyan government's decision to abolish school fees for primary education." Clinton added that, by providing free and compulsory primary education, what Kibaki had done would affect more lives than any president had done or would ever do by the end of the year. The free education program saw nearly 1.7 million more pupils enroll in school by the end of that year.

P.P. S.--Thanks to the iconic 80s band, Toto, for letting me (unbeknownst to them) pirate lyrics from their one-hit wonder, Africa, for use as this blog's title. I am forever indebted.

In the Footsteps of the Kings (and Queens)

2007-08-01T00:32:00.000-07:00

I'm quickly learning that despite my best efforts, it's impossible for me to be short and sweet about anything. But I can keep trying. We were only in Egypt for 11 days, so there can't possibly be that much to write about, right? Hmmm...not so sure.

We were a bit hesitant to alight in Cairo after having left the beauty of the Greek Isles amid reports of 46 degree Celsius temps in Egypt. That's pushing 120 degrees Fahrenheit, worse than early June at my mom's house in Arizona. Egads, we thought - if terrorists don't kill us, the heat undoubtedly will.

But we braved the warm weather and were pleasantly surprised by Cairo. Yes, I know - again the Muslim anticipation comes to mind.unending glares from seedy men, oppressive attitudes toward women, being awakened at 4:30am by the call of the muzzein (which we've honestly come to enjoy), dust, dirt, sand. But we found the Egyptians welcoming and the city a bit crazy in a good way. Maybe we'd gotten too complacent in Greece. The madness of Egypt quickly would change all that.

Our approach from the air was remarkable. I'd never seen so much sand and desert in my life! It's exactly what I'd envisioned Egypt would look like, although I was a bit worried that so much sand so close to a major metropolitan area would make for tough goings. Never fear: Cairo is modern and paved and dirty and loud and beautiful and peaceful all at the same time. Despite all the cards stacked against it, the place has a way of growing on you.

Brown is the predominant color here (if you omit the black grime), and it's remarkable how all of the buildings are tan, beige, russet, sienna, ecru, mud...a big mishmash of varying shades of that one simple hue. It's all tinged, though, from the ridiculous pollution. You risk dying from exhaust fumes every time you step outside your door, not to mention being hit by insane drivers who - in a city where traffic signals were installed at least 10 years ago - still refuse to heed the red lights. It's green and go for them nonstop, which is why Cairo has thankfully for us posted traffic police at just about every major intersection. It still makes crossing the street a big challenge, as being a Westerner, you carry a big target on your head (whether you know it or not) that seems to beckon, "Go ahead, I dare you to hit me."

We found a great hotel on the 12th floor of a commercial building downtown, in walking distance to the vast Egyptian Museum and the dreamy Nile. Owner Nabil, his cute dog Yuki, and their polite staff welcomed us as if their home were ours, and it truly made our stay special. Nabil arranged tickets, gave us great sightseeing info, offered us tea, and most important, became our friend. We really enjoyed our time at the Hotel Osiris, and the hospitality we encountered took the sting out of the Cairo streets.

Most folks hit Egypt for the pyramids at Giza, which we of course visited, but also took in the lesser-known sites of Dashur and Saqqara as well. It was a great day trip filled with amazing monuments and the best falafel I've ever tasted. At one point, I was so overcome with emotion at actually having made it all the way here to this last remaining seventh wonder of the world that I stood before the Sphinx staring at the pyramids in the background and just let the tears of joy flow. Words can't really describe the feelings that overcame me in the shadows of those impressive monuments. I think you have to experience it firsthand to fully comprehend the power these ancient structures hold over a person.

A big highlight of our time here was a four-night cruise down the Nile from Luxor to Aswan. We braved the overnight "luxury" train to Luxor (and the even longer return from Aswan five days later), lounged poolside for a day at a great historic hotel in town, spent Sunday touring the impressive sights of Karnak and Luxor Temples, and embarked Monday down the historic river in serious style. This being the first cruise for both of us, we were thoroughly impressed by our comfortable room, great buffets, and just the sheer fun of this new mode of sightseeing. It was a great and affordable way to take in the best Egypt can offer (special thanks to my friend Esther for the suggestion!).

We visited Valley of the Kings, Hatshepsut Temple, the Colossi of Memnon, Edfu Temple, Kom Ombo Temple, and Philae Temple. We braved the ridiculous heat and reveled at the enormity of it all. Our guide spoke great English, and we befriended the Japanese family who shared our daily tours (the rest of the ship was filled with Italian tourists, whom I'd befriended by the time we disembarked thanks to my decent knowledge of their language...in short, we spoke great spaghetti together).

There's so much more I could say, but for a change, I think I really will let the pictures speak for themselves and leave this entry at that. (Click on the images for larger versions.)

Greece is the Word...

2007-07-31T23:03:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know it's been a while since we've been able to update our blogs. As you can see from the above photo, I was busy making new friends in the Greek Isles. :-) Email was sporadic, laborious, and in some places ridiculously expensive in East Africa (surprise, surprise), and the few times we've been online, we were usually scrambling to research our next destination or responding/writing emails to various folks. Hopefully you haven't all given up on me!

So without further ado, I'll attempt to get caught up today. (We're holed up in Manali, India, on a cloudy but lovely cool day in the mountains.)

After too short a time in Turkey (we both agree it's a country we'd revisit in a heartbeat), we forged our way to the Greek Islands via an early morning ferry from Turkey's port city of Kusadasi to lovely little Samos. As our little boat pulled into the glistening harbor, I knew we'd made the right decision to steal 10 days from Africa and donate it to further explorations in Greece. We found a decent enough guesthouse for the low price of 26 euro run by a nice local man named Stelios. We caught a town bus for a 20-minute ride to the laid-back seaside colony of Kokkari, where we bought a cheap picnic lunch and planted ourselves on the warm stone beach. Thirty minutes later we were taking our first of many dips in the sparkling cool waters of the Aegean. This felt like paradise...and it really was. I floated all afternoon in the lovely sea and frolicked with a passing duck. This simple life couldn't have been any tastier.

We were blown away by the islands, and our grand plans to visit 4-5 of them were quickly put aside when we fell in love with one little gem. After a five-hour ferry the next morning from Samos to Mykonos--where we ate a quick bite and were appalled by the throngs of tacky European tourists--we changed ferries and headed south for Naxos. It was there that our love affair with all things Greek began.

We've always told ourselves that the beauty of the way in which we're doing this trip is that--despite the challenges we encounter at times when winging it--we can stay longer or shorter in places that either really appeal to us or that don't strike our fancy. We've experienced both situations. With Naxos, we knew pretty quickly we'd stumbled upon a great find.

We soon befriended the strong and respected Despina, who runs a little tourist office near the port. In ten minutes she'd found us one of the best hotels of our journey, located just five minutes' walk from an awesome beach, and run by a lovely Greek man, his very detail-oriented (think clean and orderly) Swedish wife, and their mixed-blood daughter. We made ourselves at home, and what started out as a few nights in Naxos turned into a week of beach-time bliss.

Since I'm behind in my posts anyway, I'll do my best to be succinct here. We gorged on great Greek food, drank a ton of really good red wine, made new friends all over town, and spent a lot of time lazing on the warm beaches and swimming in the sea. Despite the euro still hammering the dollar, we got by pretty modestly here. Over the course of the week, we explored the island by bicycle, dune buggy (what a riot!), and car, barely covering half of what Naxos has to offer. Highlights included a seaside lunch and swim at a secluded cove on a deserted beach in northern Apollonas; a visit to a 4th-century hillside monastery; and an afternoon of skinny dipping on another mostly deserted beach in the south.

It was a tearful goodbye to our Naxian friends, but you can't really complain when sublime Santorini is your next stop. We were both blown away (pun intended) by these "cities" nestled atop an impressive volcanic caldera rim. Our insanely large Blue Star Ferry cruised into the hole of the crater (you really have to see it to believe it) alongside gigantic cruise ships and modest sailboats. Our guesthouse (compliments again of Despina) wasn't exactly great, but it was clean, had a decent pool, and was only about a 20-minute walk to the main town of Fira.

We befriended a few local dogs when I bought one of them a much-needed chicken souvlaki and then wandered around Fira's narrow lanes with our new four-legged guides as sunset approached--an impressive sight. The next day we took a local bus a half-hour to the black-sand beach of Kamari, where we floated in the deepest water I've ever been in so close to shore and so clear. It was just another tough day in the Greek Islands.

Later that afternoon we embarked on a three-hour rigorous hike along the caldera's rim from Fira to the northernmost town of Oia, arriving in time for a tasty pasta dinner and an awesome sunset. What an amazing journey! The pictures speak a thousand words, as you can see above.

After two nights on Santorini, we boarded the high-speed ferry for the four-hour ride to Piraeus, Athens' gigantic port. The metro was easy enough to find and our hotel was decent enough for our two nights' stay here...just on the border of the hip Plaka neighborhood and close enough to the drug-dealing, prostitution side of town to make the rate a little more bearable.

The city didn't do much for us: Most of the Parthenon was under scaffolding, the skies were grey, and (dare I say this?) the sights not as impressive as we'd expected. But we did enjoy a great dinner with our close SF friends Cathy and Hashem, whose April wedding we'd just missed due to our March 20 departure. What a great coincidence that they were starting their honeymoon in Greece and we were there later in June due to our having postponed our departure to Africa. We had ouzo shots, drank a lot of wine, and feasted well that night in Plaka.

That's Greece, my friends, in a nutshell. Despite our not indulging in the more historic side of things, we thoroughly did justice to immersing ourselves in the culture and beach scenes. I really miss Mama's pasticcio, friendly Mike from Mike's Bikes, Waffle House ice cream, the gang at Hotel Argo, and most of all, the Aegean. Who ever knew you could fall in love with a sea?

Turkish Delight

2007-06-21T03:09:00.000-07:00

After the hassle in Morocco, we were a bit timid to show up on the doorstep of yet another Islamic country after such a glorious month toodling easily around clean, sexy, cosmopolitan westernized European countries. Things had been running smoothly, most people spoke English, the food was excellent, the beer was consistently good and cheap. Let's just say we weren't really looking forward to Turkey, but were we in for a surprise. That country welcomed us with open arms. What a friendly and amazing culture they've got brewing over there! We were sadly wrong in our assumptions, and you know what they say about assuming anything. We won't make that mistake again.

Arranging a flight from Eastern Europe wasn't as easy as we thought. Well, let me rephrase that: It was easy, it just wasn't cheap. But that's another funny story in istelf. We visited several travel agencies in Budapest and had an interesting discussion at one in particular. We sat down and told this young Hungarian guy where we wanted to go. He asked if we were teachers. We said no. He then quoted us a one-way fare of $400 per person to get from Budapest to Istanbul--a measly two-hour flight. A simple hop, skip, not even a jump. $400! We freaked. We tried other airlines. We talked about other countries. We considered taking a train for two days through Romania and Bulgaria and Greece. Then the agent asked again, "Are you teachers?" We said no--again. He then told us if we were teachers, he could give us the Malev Airlines teacher discount of only $200 per person. Quite a deal brewing there for educational professionals. We looked at him perplexed, wondering why he would share this seemingly useless information that did nothing but rub salt in our already wounded wallets.

He then told us we could become teachers. How do we do that, we asked? He said we pay him $6 each and he issues us a teacher card; we just need to provide a passport-sized photo. Easy as pie, this teacher credential thing. So the long and short of it is, we became teachers on that sunny day in Budapest. :-) We forgot to bring the passport photos we carry with us for visas on the day we went to get our tickets, but never fear. We stored digital files of said photos on our camera's memory chip for just such an occasion. It wasn't hard to locate a photo shop in Budapest, where we printed out a sheet of each of us for less than $1. Then back to the travel agent, where we then had to answer the next $64,000 question: Where do you teach? David and I looked at each other in amusement, a bit puzzled by the level of deception in which we were about to engage. A university felt too prestigious, a high school too mundane. David suggested we use the name of the private elementary/grade school I'd attended for nine years. It was, after all, a very prestigious learning institution.

So there you have it: We are both teachers at The Carey School in San Mateo, California, and $400 the richer for our achievement. Granted, neither of us feels great about abusing the system that way, but then again, we've vowed to only do it that one time. (Wait, weren't we just at the entry to Luxor Temple in Egypt inquiring about their teacher discount? Of course I jest.)

Deception aside, we arrived in Istanbul in the early afternoon and were pleased to see a very modern slick airport with public transportation to the city center. We hopped on the metro, then transferred to the local tram to get to Sultanahmet, where David had lined up a great hotel/hostel just a few blocks behind the Blue Mosque...and it didn't cost a fortune, go figure! Of course, weary from being constantly on guard in Morocco just over a month ago, we immediately distrusted the first Turk who overheard us talking about where to find the tram and offered to show us the way. No thank you, we politely replied. He insisted; we politely resisted again. He gently smiled at me and said, "Come, this way. Come, come," and we obligingly followed, expecting to have to shell out some change for his expert guide services. But no, he was simply being kind. What a concept! He showed us the tram entrance, gave us a big smile, and disappeared before we could say "thanks" or toss him a few coins. Something told us we were going to like this city...a lot.

A nasty cold overtook me on day two, but we still managed to cram in the best Istanbul has to offer. We visited the Blue Mosque several times and were awed by the enormity of it all, and in the evenings, the silence and beauty of being two of only a handful of tourists taking it in. That was pure magic. Aya Sofia was even more impressive and kept us enthralled for almost two hours. My daily return to the hotel for a long afternoon nap gave David the chance to sketch mosques for hours, meeting tons of locals as he drew to his heart's content.

The rest of the time in the city we just walked and trammed to different neighborhoods, taking in the local comings and goings. We indulged in tasty cheap doner and killer Koska baklava, played backgammon in the evenings at cozy cafes, dipped into the Grand Bazaar although we weren't in the buying mode, and spent time hanging out with the awesome couple who ran our hotel. Their rooftop terrace offered close-up views of the Blue Mosque's minarets and the Sea of Marmara in the distance. We knew we'd stumbled onto something really special.

We treated ourselves to an all-day cruise up the Bosphorus, arriving at lunchtime at a small village on the Asian side at the mouth of the Black Sea. We hiked up to an old castle ruin that provided amazing views in all directions. We watched tankers stream out toward Russia and played with stray dogs. It was a neat escape from the city and great chance to see more of the area surrounding Istanbul.

For our last three days in the wonderful world of Turkey, we flew south 45 minutes to Izmir, then went by road an hour south to the small town of Selcuk, our base for exploring the ruins at Ephesus. That journey south was an experience in itself. Our Selcuk hotel had told David there was either a train or bus that we could take upon arrival at the airport. They were somewhat correct in their advice but omitted the tiny details. You know, like informing us we'd miss the train by only two minutes and the next one wasn't until three hours after we arrived, or that to catch a bus to Selcuk, you have to take a $50 cab ride to the main bus station way outside Izmir and then still buy onward bus tickets.

So there we were, pathetically wondering how we were going to get to this town, when two policemen took mercy on our pitiful selves and offered assistance. Only rub was, their English wasn't too great. We managed to explain that we needed to get to Selcuk, and as luck would have it, another one of their Turkish cop buddies on airport duty lived in Selcuk, commuted to Izmir, and would of course know how to advise us on getting there.

A few minutes later said Selcuk-residing cop arrives, and as more luck would have it, he doesn't speak much English but he is married to a French woman, hence he and I set off in rapid French regarding our options. What about the train, I inquire? "Ah, yes, there is a train...oh, but look, you won't make it," he says. We turn in the direction of his pointing finger to see our train whizzing past the airport station on its way to...yeah, you guessed it...Selcuk. So Plan B. We will take a cab four kilometers to the town of something-I-can't-remember-in-Turkish, and from there, we'll wait in front of a supermarket at a bus stop he knows is there, which will at some time present us with a bus to Selcuk. This option sounds a bit sketchy to us but we have no other choices at this point, it's pouring rain, and we're not not about to shell out 50 bones to get ourselves to a random bus station where we'd have to take yet another form of haphazard public transportation in Turkey.

So what about that taxi for those four kilometers? Seems no cab drivers want to waste their time on such a skimpy fare. But wait, do not dispair, in comes Turkish curbside skycap kid who speaks great English. He sees us surrounded by airport cops and asks if he can help. He then proceeds to convince the third cabbie who arrives to transport us to the bus stop in the town of something-I-can't-remember-in-Turkish for the low, low price of $8. We agree and jump in.

The ride is a bit crazy in the rain but after about 15 minutes, I excitedly see the supermarket, and yes, there is a bus stop outside. All seems well in the world, until David gets locked in his seatbelt and can't get out, and the driver is yelling at me to vacate his cab but I can't budge because I'm trapped by David's heavy pack, which I can't lift on my own (remember, I'm still nursing that nasty cold from Istanbul), and it's pouring down rain. The driver finally gets what I'm trying to tell him about David and runs around to the other side of the cab to jab something in the lock. My husband is free (with his backpack in tow), I am free, we are both free in the town of something-I-can't-remember-in-Turkish. Now, for that bus to Selcuk.

I turn to a young-looking Turkish woman and ask if she speaks English. Only a little, she says. I do my best pantomime of "Bus to Selcuk," at which point she turns to the 30+ Turks congregating in the rain, and an explosion of Turkish erupts, at which point the woman replies, "Yes, here." Okay, we're at least in the right place. Now, where is that bus?

For every bus that approaches, David makes the bold leap into traffic over a rushing gutter of water to find out if it's our lucky ride to Selcuk. Repeatedly he's turned down, as driver after driver shakes his head, mumbles something in Turkish, points behind himself, and speeds off. Countless Turks board buses for destinations unknown, leaving us to ponder our fate in the rain in front of a suburban supermarket. After 20 minutes or so of this routine, I'm beginning to give up and try to concoct Plan C, although I'm at a loss for inspiration in the town of something-I-can't-remember-in-Turkish.

But then something magical happens. Like a gift from above, a small woman taps me on the shoulder. I whip around, expecting to be mugged or hassled. "Selcuk?" she asks timidly. "Yes," I reply eagerly. She points behind me, and like a nomad stumbling upon an oasis after 30 days in the desert, I feel our luck has changed. A tiny dolmus (that's Turkish for minibus) bearing a Selcuk sign pulls up at the curb. We have been saved! We gladly board and wave goodbye to the shoulder-tapping angel from the town of something-I-can't-remember-in-Turkish.

We're greeted by a dolmus "flight attendant" who stows our packs in the back, offers us lemon-scented hand gel, and pours us each a cold glass of bottled mineral water. This is better service than Southwest Airlines! And to think we're crammed into a little van with 15+ Turks on the way to who knows where (hopefully Selcuk). We marvel at this system, which includes stops along the road to pick up locals on their way to somewhere, or sometimes, just exchanges of packets or boxes from men standing by the side of a highway. It's a seemingly random system of transportation that appears to operate more smoothly than anything I've seen in the U.S. We befriend a Turkish female tour guide who speaks fluent English on the hour-long ride. She takes us under her wing and even gets the dolmus to stop just a few hundred yards from our hotel. Ah, we have arrived in Selcuk, and we are alive to tell about it. Pure paradise.

Selcuk's main draw are the ruins of Ephesus, which lie literally in the town's backyard. Our trip there was inspiring, but much of this historical site is in ruin (literally) and overrun by tour buses, as was to be expected. It was really hot the day we were there, so we breezed through in about two hours and felt very satisfied. Afterwards we walked a few kilometers to the Seven Sleepers ruin and ate awesome guzleme (Turkish pancakes) for lunch from a local restaurant under the trees. Our Selcuk hotel picked us up in the minivan once finished (a great free service they offer) and drove us the short five minutes back to town.

That's the benefit of staying in Selcuk. Despite the comedy of errors involved in getting there, it offered great proximity to several amazing ruins and a cozier vibe than neighboring Kusadasi, where the mammoth cruise ships dock. We spent one afternoon in a traditional Turkish village eight kilometers away called Siringe, high on the hills amid grape vines and an ancient church. Back in Selcuk, we really enjoyed the chilled-out "downtown" and spent our evenings safely wandering the tiny streets, watching storks nurse their babies from nests built atop the ancient aquaduct, eating homemade ice cream, and playing backgammon while drinking Turkish tea. Selcuk offered other great slices of history such as a 14th-century mosque and the ruins of St. John the Baptist's home and church (all right across the street from our hotel!).

Sure, we'd go back to Selcuk in a heartbeat...but make sure to catch that train from the airport next time around.

Moving On East

2007-05-26T12:12:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how the farther east you go (with the exception of Turkey and Greece), the more downhill go the trains, the standards of cleanliness, the frequency of smiles, the ease of getting around, and up, up, up goes the chain smoking coupled with bad 80s rock and worse 80s fashion. Good thing we didn't attempt Romania or Bulgaria, but what we saw of eastern Europe did not disappoint.

Zagreb proved a nice surprise, and while we were having mixed feelings about skipping the Dalmation coast and not seeing more of such an interesting country, we both agree as we sit on a small Greek island right now that we made the right decision to move on. It's not yet high season here in the Aegean paradise, and while the Euro is killing us once again, we are living the high life soaking in the sea, lounging on half-empty beaches, filling up on moussaka mama made that day, and just digging the island scene...and we've only been doing this gig for 36 hours. The next nine days are bound to get even better.

Croatia's capital is a curious mix: crumbling apartment structures riddled with graffiti teeter next to pristine Austro-Hungarian architecture; deserted dark streets open up to vibrant cafe scenes; the serene old town with its intricately decorated churches looms over fascist-styled boxy buildings and bustling trams. We had a really nice time during our short two days in Zagreb and agreed it was worth the stopover, despite there being anything really monumental to report. A nice local guy at an accommodation agency hooked us up with a super small studio for the right price on a quiet street smack dab in the middle of the action. The city and its people were good to us.

We rolled into Budapest two days later after almost eight hours on a smelly dirty train plodding along through the rain, but at least we had the compartment to ourselves. Halfway through the journey David discovered a baby slug on one of the fresh strawberries we'd bought at the Zagreb market. We named him Sluggi (mind you, pronounced "SCHlug-ee" in deference to our Czec and Slovenian comrades, who love that SCH thing), carefully confined him to the clamshell despite his efforts to escape, and kept him occupied with more berry tops than he could digest in a day until we could find him greener pastures in which to set up shop. I felt a bit guilty that we'd transported a living creature over the border. Would he miss his Croatian slug family, I wondered? Would he need a passport? Would he be deported?

Budapest was grey, grey, grey and wet, wet, wet upon arrival...quite dreary, and full of people and concrete. We soon found ourselves missing Croatia's cozy little capital. Lament aside, the first order of business was finding displaced Sluggi a home. I braved five lanes of traffic in a Hungarian roundabout and jaywalked in front of a sea of 50s-era buses to a patch of greenery perched above the Keleti train station metro stop. At that point, Sluggi wasn't looking too good and I fought to move his almost lifeless body onto a leaf. Dejected at the thought that we'd failed in our mission to safely transport the little guy, I jaywalked back to meet David for the ride to Moskva Square, where we'd catch a bus for the 1/2-hour ride to the burbs, where we'd decided to hole up for four nights at a four-star we splurged on thanks to a great Internet deal David had found. Turns out life movin east ain't all that bad.

Didn't think we'd need the fancy hotel respite until Africa, but it turned out to be a nice break from the endless sights, hot weather, and noisy streets Budapest delivered. Our hotel had a sweet bathroom, down pillows, a huge heated pool, a fitness center complete with a steam room and sauna, and daily aerobics if we so desired (we stuck to the free weights and stairmaster). It all came in handy after gorging on huge buffet breakfasts, more breaded meats, and endless Hungarian beers.

We took in the major monuments, visited the historic city of Ezthergom (home to Hungary's largest cathedral), hiked to the high hilltop citadel of Visegrad overlooking the Danube bend (look closely, you'll see me waving at left), took a slow boat several hours back to Budapest on the aforementioned famous river, and soaked for an afternoon in the famous Szecheny baths (awesome!). After four nights in the four-star digs, we reluctantly downgraded to a studio apartment in a bullet-riddled building in the Jewish quarter to save some dinero. It was cosy enough, with a great location and killer price, not to mention cheap Internet around the corner.

We attempted a glorious day trip three hours south to Pecs (pronounced Paich) but were foiled by a faulty announcement board at the train station. After having waited over half an hour staring at the board for them to announce our platform number, we took matters into our own hands after our scheduled departure time had passed and tracked down a Hungarian train man who knew enough sign language and broken German (everyone assumes we speak Deutsche) to reveal that our train had left without us. How could it? we exclaimed. We were waiting with the rest of the crowd for the platform announcement, which clearly never came. Turns out, after arguing with numerous train "officials," that they don't have enough room on their boards to list all the destinations, so they lump some places with other major city destinations on the same line. Ours was the train listed for Sarajevo, but how were we to know that Pecs, just right below, was on the same journey? Stupid us: we just don't have our eastern European geography down well enough to connect those dots.

Luckily we argued long and hard enough to get 14,000 of our 15,000 forint outlay back (almost $75!). We stormed out dejected, feeling lame and abused. We did some sightseeing but spent most of the day running errands and taking refuge in the mall from the mid-90s stifling heat wave. It was actually kind of nice to mix with the locals and do some normal "real life" things for a change. Yes, even the Hungarian clouds have silver linings.

Having learned the ropes the hard way, we returned the next day for the trip to Pecs and made a successful journey south for a wonderful afternoon (David's birthday, no less!). In the midst of touring a spectacular old church, we experienced a huge thunder- and windstorm that was magical as long as we stayed inside. After braving the rain, we tracked down a great cafe meal in town and witnessed a beautiful sunset on the way back.

The country proved pretty neat after all, but I say get the chain gang ready, my Hungarian friends. It's time to lay down some new tracks and update your outdated announcement boards. Challenging at times, rewarding at others, those were our eight days in Hungary.

May Sluggi rest in peace, wherever he is, and enjoy endless strawberry tops in the afterlife.

The Slovenian Surprise

2007-05-13T13:31:00.000-07:00

Lovely Slovenia, as you might have read in my last post, got off to a slow start but quickly became the underdog favorite of our travels thus far. It will most likely win my vote for the "Best little country emerging from years of Commie oppression with no real desire to make it big in the new EU landscape" award. Get the party clothes ready, folks. The scenery, the people, the natural beauty, the food, the beer, the black wine, the endless backroads, the Medieval castles, the turquoise rivers, heck, it all rocked here...even the rental car that came without hubcaps. It rocked, too. This is a long post but this country deserves it. If I weren't on a mission to broaden my horizons in every which way, I'd still be hanging out in Slovenia as I type this.

Despite wandering around Ljubljana for over an hour in a seemingly hopeless pursuit of a hotel or pension that wouldn't break the bank (Maribor revisited?), we finally found an overpriced two-star joint in a sad-looking 12-story concrete high rise, dropped off the bags, and headed out for some fun (finally!). We hit a riverside cafe, met some locals with two cute huskies, shared dog training stories, and...yeah, you guessed it...beer. We settled in to Slovenia with open minds and decided to give this tiny country another fighting chance. It surpassed our greatest expectations and then some.

We easily covered in a day the capital city that no one can pronounce, and our extra night there we spent lounging at a yummy retro cafe indulging in pretty decent Mexican food (although we got gouged on the bottled water) and great ice cream. The dreary hotel/hostel proved to be quite hip and comfy: free Internet in the lobby, a good hearty breakfast, clean sheets, and all the German "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" episodes that a game show freak like me could ask for. (To our surprise, I was actually able to get a few of the answers right...pretty amazing since I don't even speak German.) We spent the second night in the hostel portion for a fraction of the cost, and ironically it proved nicer than the hotel. Go figure; too bad they were sold out of hostel rooms our first night there. We drank extra cappucinos and ate double portions at breakfast to make up for the difference.

Working off tips my London-based, Paris-days girlfriend Kathy had given us from her recent vacation here, we tracked down a rental car--despite it being the national May Day holiday--and headed out to the country for some R&R. (Yes, even travelers like us on hiatus from reality for a year need some now and then.) We stopped off in Škofja Loka to check out their Medieval castle; wandered upon some locals roasting a whole pig at a mountaintop cafe; endured a harrowing-but-worth-the-anxiety skinny mountain road that meandered through small villages and passed an insane ridgetop chapel (check out the pic, it says it all); drove past endless hayracks and cows; and puttered through the countryside to our desintation in Bled.

Kathy had recommended the Pension Berc at Lake Bled, and we knew when we pulled into the place that it would be heaven. We were greated by cheerful Miha, who runs the place with his dad and brother, who also run the hotel across the street. An uncle turned the family farm next door into a four-star that's gorgeous, and the entire family compound just really delights. Miha gave us one of the best rooms in the place (I know, because I checked them all out one day when the maid was making her rounds), and we ended up extending our stay after just one day in town because we smelled a good time coming. Our sniffers were right on the money.

We sped off quickly after arrival on the free bikes Miha makes available and began our ride around the lake. You really have to pinch yourself in this place to know you're not living in some fairy tale. This gem sports the imposing Julian Alps as a northern backdrop; boasts a hilltop castle AND an enchanting church poised on an island mid-lake, complete with overpriced "gondolas" to shuttle you back and forth (we didn't indulge); and is surrounded by massive Triglav National Park, which David and I agreed could give Yosemite a run for its money (hopefuly John Muir's not turning in his grave right now). We had a tough time focusing on the road and I almost drove my bike into the curb several times, not to mention traffic (if you could call a few cars and one tour bus traffic). It was simply stunning! We stopped at the Restaurant Mlino at Miha's suggestion for a late lunch...yep, more beer, schnitzel, and fries...then reboarded the bikes to finish the lakeside loop and burn off those calories.

The beer buzz helped us navigate the plethora of people out enjoying the holiday. I say that jokingly, because we didn't really think there were that many people out and about, although Miha commented next morning at breakfast, "Hey, what about all the people in town, eh? Pretty crowded." Coming from the big city, we had a good chuckle, but over the next few days, we laughed even more loudly, because the place was virtually deserted...and I mean that in a good way. Totally mellow, just the way we like it.

On day two we drove a half-hour west into Triglav to hike around Lake Bohinj. Just when you think it can't get any better, it does. This place was even more deserted, more chill, and more stunning than Bled in certain ways. We parked the car near one end of the lake and set out to hike the flat trail that runs the circumference. We encountered few people, and only Slovenians at that. Everyone kept greating us with the colloquial "dan," which pleased us to no end because it meant we passed for locals. We try hard not to stand out like ugly Americans.

The scenery was impressive and the hike a joy. We took a snack/drawing/puzzle break at the far end of the lake and marveled for almost two hours at the impressive mountains looming around us on three sides. The skies were pretty grey but occasional bursts of sunshine offered great photo ops, and the rain actually made the place even more mystical. A great dinner back in Bled finished off a superb day in Bohinj, and we even managed to stumble upon a less-glorified version of an ice cream sundae for dessert (good thing we'd hiked 10+ kilometers that day).

Day three was less successful on some accounts but fun nonetheless. We drove just five kilometers to the Vintgar Gorge, an amazing canyon with a raised boardwalk built into the sides of the rocks. We wandered deep into the place with nothing but the chirping of birds and the rushing of river to accompany us. On the way out we heard the jingling of cow bells and watched a heard of bovines take a water break just a few feet from our car (on the other side of the river, mind you).

We then headed for Pokluja Soteske, a nearby hidden hiking gem Miha had told us about. "Few tourists go there or even know about this place." That was all we needed to hear. We missed the turnoff but easily found our way back, puttered through the little village, and ended up at the end of the paved road. Braving dirt and rocks for the last kilometer or so, we arrived at a deserted parking area for the trailhead, which was interestingly filled with quite a few hewn trees. As David suited up in the daypack, I noticed a large sign next to the trail that said "closed" in quite a few languages, including English. Hmmm...not sure why this place would be closed, and seeing as Miha said it was so cool, we decided to venture in a bit to check it out. Maybe they'd just forgotten to take the sign down after the winter snows. Or maybe not.

It didn't take long before the whirring of chain saws greeted us in the not-so-distant distance, and we looked up to see a rather large pile of fallen trees just up the hill to our right. Then the real alarm bell rang...the sound of another tree falling, again in the not-so-distant distance. We ran. Luckily the car wasn't too far away. But the experience rattled my nerves, and I had an icky rest of the day. Our efforts to find another hiking trail proved fruitless, so we returned to the lake but I just wasn't up for heading back into the woods. We resorted to my ultimate comfort--cute little animals--and spent the end of the day watching ducklings catch bugs and feeding weeds to cute goats at the campground near the lake. This helped calm me down a bit, but I couldn't help feeling like I'd just escaped a very dangerous situation. Many days later I told David that it would have been the ultimate irony to be killed from a falling tree in peaceful Slovenia before we'd even made it to the dangerous streets of Nairobi or the teetering heights of the Himalayas.

We were greeted by rain on our last day, thus our plans to bike ride morphed into some chill time doing puzzles on our patio, a soggy hike up to the castle, a cozy late lunch at an okay pension, a killer hot chocolate you could eat with a fork, and a taste of the famous local cake at an awesome bakery. We narrowly escaped danger yet again when I wandered onto a neighbor's property to investigate a loud mooing coming from a conspicuous barn in the middle of a residential neighborhood, only to be chased down the driveway by a mad border collie that was fast as lightening. David said we were quite close to having a piece of our legs chomped out, and as much as I was falling in love with Slovenia, I knew we didn't want to have to extend our stay another 26 days to endure a painful course of rabies treatments that the SF health department nurse had warned us about. (You're right, Pam, we should just stay away from foreign dogs we don't know. Easier said than done for me.)

Planning to spend our last night in Italian-inspired Piran nestled along Slovenia's tiny little coast, we decided to extend our rental car an extra day after Miha tipped us off to a great little guesthouse in the middle of the Karst region. Know for its black "teran" wine and endless rolling hills covered in grapevines, the place sounded like Napa and seemed like a great stopover on our way to Piran. It didn't disappoint us, nor did the long drive there. We sadly said goodbye to Miha and his girlfriend and vowed to return to Pension Berc one day. We took the long way around and tackled the insane Vrsic Pass, Slovenia's highest mountain road at 4,800 feet. It twisted and turned through the alps via ridiculous switchbacks, and at times our little Opel corsa felt like it wouldn't make it to the summit. But it chugged along like the little engine that could and carried us safely to amazing scenery all day, despite the grey skies and heavy rains at times. We dropped down into a beautiful valley reminiscent of Kauai's Na Pali Coast (I kid you not, this country defies logic at every turn), meandered along a river the color of deep turquoise, and rose over the hills into the Karst region covered in grapes.

We arrived in little Sepulje late in the day and were the only English-speaking tourists in the village (if you could call it that). We got a great room at the guesthouse and settled in for some cribbage and a taste of the famous black stuff. At 70 cents (Euro) a glass, we imbibed in quite a few and discovered the best drinking deal of the trip so far (in a Euro-based country, that is). Shortly before dinner, we witnessed one of the most magical things I've ever seen in my life. Taking advantage of a break in the rain (and needing to walk off the pre-dinner wine to prepare for the during-dinner drinking), we wandered out from the pension along a backroad through the grapevines. The sun shone all around us, and I looked up to see a full rainbow stretching from church to church in neighboring villages. We both stood there in amazement and I cried. It was beautiful.

Despite enduring a busload of Austrian tourists at dinner and a funky shower, the Sepulje place proved a great experience and we left all the better for having made the stop. On our way to Piran the next day, we enjoyed endless sunshine, a quick stop to view the famous horses at Lipica, and a speedy shortcut through Italy on our way to the Slovenian coast. After getting lost on the cobblestone backroads into the village and realizing there had to be another way to the main square and the other hotel Kathy had recommended, we finally made our way down the hill but ended up roomless as the place was a bit out of our budget. When the hotel desk guy told us we'd be hard-pressed to find anything under 100 Euro ($130!) and suggested we bail on the coast and head inland to less-touristed places, we almost gave up but decided to drive up the hill to some "Zimmer" signs we'd seen on our way in. Locals often rent rooms out of their homes at pretty decent prices. Turns out we were in luck: a cute little lady that could have been my grandma's twin managed to squeeze out enough English, German, and Italian to tell us we could have a room for just 40 Euro. She showed us the place and it was adorable, complete with our own little terrace and chairs overlooking the Adriatic in the distance. We pulled into her driveway, dropped off our bags, hiked back into town, ate a great dinner, watched an awesome sunset, and wondered if we hadn't taken a wrong turn and ended up at Italy's Cinque Terre. Little Piran is a seaside gem with a big heart. It's a bit touristy but still worth a look, and we really enjoyed it.

Our drive back to Ljubljana the next day was quick and uneventful. We reluctantly dropped off the car and resorted once again to hoofing it with our bags like the rest of the real backpackers out there. Upon arrival at the train station, our hopes for a fast exit were dashed when we learned the next train to Zagreb, Croatia, didn't depart for another three hours. What to do? We hoofed it back to Adria Airlines' office in the chance of getting a flight directly to Dubrovnik. No such luck. So we fell back on our old habits, found a great cafe with our favorite beer, and bought some cheap eats at a local market.

Over the coarse of the next few hours, and with the help of a noontime beer buzz, we made the difficult decision to bail on the Croatian coast due to lack of time and instead focus on getting to Budapest from Zagreb. From there we could leisurely explore Hungary and have more time left over to roam around Istanbul and the Greek Islands. Not a bad plan, although we were hesitant to skip the Dalmatians, as we'd heard wonderful things. But we'd also just spent eight incredible days in sleepy Slovenia, and we knew that Croatia's coastline was littered with too many European tourists seeking sunshine and great beaches. We didn't need to find ourselves lost and annoyed among them. So Zagreb it was! On the train there, I watched Slovenia slip away from the train window as I sucked in my last few breaths of fresh mountain air. I knew it wouldn't be my last visit; I was surely coming back to this place.

Five Days, Ten Countries, Endless Bliss...

2007-05-08T11:42:00.000-07:00

We quickly traded tagines for tapas and grilled meats for goulash, and found ourselves asking daily, "What local brew do you have on tap?" In the course of ten short days, we jetsetted to five amazing countries, all the while basking in the beautiful glory of being back on more civilized ground. From Barcelona to Berlin, from the Czech Republic to newly independent former Yugoslav republics, and soon onward to Hungary, it just keeps getting better. We both admit that Morocco can't begin to compete with Europe in so many different ways, but oddly at times, I find myself missing the chaos a bit. Just a bit. But not nearly enough to go back anytime soon.

David and I remind ourselves constantly that this trip isn't about staying in the comfort zone. But I have to admit it's awfully hard to rally to push yourself out of it into places like Marrakech or Fez when you're chugging yet another different half-liter of draft beer for under $2, or licking up endless gelato that gets creamier the farther east we head (go figure), or dipping your toes in the Adriatic as the sky offers up yet another amazing sunset, or hiking in the shadow of yet another range of stunning alps (there are quite a few where we've been!), or marveling at lovely architecture, or riding on well-designed, immaculate public transportation (and I don't mean a donkey either).

When our Click Air flight left Casablanca in the wake of numerous suicide bombings, and less than a few hours later we were making the sharp turn for the decent into Barcelona, I could feel excitement buzzing in the air. Even from thousands of feet up, I could see the goodness this vibrant city was going to offer. The atmosphere was very European, the feeling very San Francisco. We both felt at home the moment we stepped off the plane, and our short two days exploring the sights and neighborhoods were jam-packed but delightful. We both chuckle now that it took us until the last day to realize they speak a different dialect. Catalan isn't much like the "burrito" Spanish I learned growing up in California, which explains why no one returned my "buenos dias" greeting and responded in terms I couldn't begin to understand. At one point I had to ask if I really was in Spain or if we'd made a wrong left turn into Portugal.

We did Gaudi, we did parks, we did tapas, we did Las Ramblas, we did Gracia. Our time in Barcelona was too short, but we'll return one day when the Euro loses its run against the dollar. It was a shock to land in a chilly, grey-skied Berlin after sporting Tevas and t-shirts for a few days, but it was great to see David's brother, Andrew; his wife, Lyuba; and our new niece, Elizabeth, just over three months old. Lyuba, who hails from Uzbekistan, completely outdid herself and greeted us with an amazing homemade meal. We feasted on her native borscht; an amazing roast duck with baked apples and rice; a lovely green salad; yummy bread and butter; and ice cream sundaes with fresh fruit for dessert. WOW! We joked about the best part of the meal being the assurance of not getting food poisoning after leaving the table. And as is always the case with any true Russian-influenced meal, the requisite vodka shots were flowing. I glady declined and let the boys have at the hangovers.

We thought we'd died and gone to heaven, and we both quickly agreed there's nothing like spending quality time with family. Obvious reasons aside, the digs were spacious and clean (not to mention free), the food oustanding (Lyuba's breakfasts almost surpassed her dinner), the shower amazing (an important part of our accommodation assessments), and the free laundry in the high-speed German washing machine a true luxury. Although Lyuba's English is limited, she's fluent in German, and Andrew did a good job of translating for us. We spent great evenings drinking beer, eating good food, and just catching up and playing with the baby. It was a real treat and a nice break from being on the go.

Next was Prague, which didn't disappoint, although David fell prey to exhaustion and ended up hotel-bound our last day there with a bad headache and overall icky feeling. A good day-and-a-half of sleep did the trick, and I'm pleased to report he rebounded quickly. We lazed in parks and pubs along the Vltava, explored amazing cathedrals, listened to great music on the Charles Bridge, and (guess what's next?) drank great Czech beer.

We then ventured out of the big city and away from the large tour groups to a wonderland we hesitate to share. Our two nights in the southern, laid-back town of Ceske Budejovice (which took us two weeks and three countries to finally pronounce; by the time we'd reached Croatia, I'd finally perfected the name, which I won't even try to replicate phonetically here) offered a cheap cozy pension along a creek, excellent pizza, great coffee, killer ice cream, peaceful riverside strolls, a casino gambling adventure, and the crown jewel of day trips--a visit to medieval Cesky Krumlov.

The latter, which I'd read about during my Sierra Club Outings catalog production days, delivered all that and then some. After a quaint hour-long ride on a rickety, fat, old two-car "train" that stopped to pick up every local on his or her way to hike the Czech Greenways, we packed in a great seven hours exploring Crumbcake's (my cutesy nickname) cobblestone narrow streets, old castle, awesome churches, and, well...um...okay, truth be told, three of those hours we spent on the requisite daily beer sampling, food gorging, and sketching and reading by the river. Our waiter was an ultra-hip honest Czech guy who told us the local beer everyone advertised was crap, and who arranged to let me have the awe-inspiring Bohemian feast for two as a feast for one. (David didn't want to imbibe in so much food, which explains why his jeans fit him today and mine don't...I'm not smiling). The prices AND the meal were happily reminscent of the Middle Ages. My platter included a tasty chicken thigh, salty slab of smoked ham, millet casserole, potatoes three ways (boiled, pancaked, and dumplinged), and pickled slaw. It rocked, despite the weight gain. I'm sure we'll puke it off later in the year in India (sorry, bad joke).

Heading next for Slovenia, we decided to break up the trip and stop for a few nights in Graz, Austria. Lonely Planet had said good things about the place, despite it being the home of our [lame] California governer Ah-nold and a mecca for hoardes of Italian tourists grazing among the glitzy shops. All that aside, and despite our funky, outdated, somewhat creepy, overpriced pension in the burbs, we enjoyed a peaceful night and a fun full day here, not to mention HUGE ice creams at cheap prices defying the Euro, not to mention my waistline. Our shining moment was a cool tram ride to the end of the Number 1 line and a visit to the Mariatrost, a huge basilica that has become the Mecca for for countless Catholic Europeans. We happened upon a lavish wedding ceremony, heard defeaning bells ringing, and hiked over an hour back to town through a beautiful wooded park. Dinner proved even more monumental with a giant schnitzel, an alp-sized mound of fries, a green salad with the yummy local pumpkin seed oil dressing, and of course, more beer and giant ice cream. Austria knows how to have a good time in the culinary and potent potables end of things, that's for sure. No wonder Ah-nold spent so much time in the gym.

We caught a morning train to Maribor, Slovenia, just an hour south of Graz, at the suggestion of the aforementioed ultra-hip Czech guy from Crumbcake, who--after lugging five bags around Maribor for an hour in 80-degree weather to locate (unsuccessfully) a hotel in our price range (or any hotel, for that matter)--became not so ultra-hip. We figured he must have been raving about the place due to its numerous winter sports offerings, which we soon read about, and this being the end of April, well, let's just say the snow ain't so grand in Maribor this time of year. We gave up, headed back for the train station, found we had to wait 2.5 hours for the next train to Ljubljana, and parked it at a cool cafe with two giant Zlatarogs, the local favorite beer. Thank you, Lasko brewery, for your wonderful Slovenian suds; you turned an otherwise unfavorable first impression of a country into a happy chance encounter with nirvana. Zlatarog quickly became our favorite brew of choice and, as you'll soon read, Slovenia my favorite country thus far. In fact, I venture to say it will be a highlight of this entire experience. More soon!

More Adventures in Morocco...

2007-04-24T03:24:00.000-07:00

Well, it was bound to happen at some point, but we just didn't figure on it being so soon, or here. We were robbed and succombed to horrible food poisoning during our second week in Morocco. Not the experience we'd hoped for, but it could have been worse. We are grateful to have escaped without too much damage.

After four wild nights in Marrakech, we left on a cushy Supratours bus for a three-hour ride to the lovely beach town of Essaouira. It was a welcome change from the hot, gritty red desert interior landscape and proved a great place to chill out for three days. We took long strolls on the beach, sat on a camel, played on the dunes, drank mint tea with the Berbers, hugged dogs, ate yummy macaroons, watched amazing sunsets, relished the Atlantic breeze, and finally found a few beers to quench our thirsts. (Morocco is dry for the most part).

Sadly, we were robbed on our last night in the hotel, which left a bad taste in our mouths for the place. We figured it was the cleaning lady, but how she managed to pick our locks we'll never know. It was definitely an inside job, as they only made away with 300 of our 1,100 dirham (about $35) and most of the free perfume samples I'd picked up in Scotland. This skimming of a small amount of money is a common scam we've read about; hotel worker thieves take only a small amount of cash so you won't notice anything amiss. As I said before, it could have been much worse. The feeling of being violated was the evil thing; just knowing someone had rifled through all of our belongings made us sick to our stomachs. To add insult to injury, we had to get up at 5am to catch the bus back to Marrakech to make a four-hour train transfer to Rabat, so the evening's events took away from our much-needed rest. After explaining our plight to the hotel manager via phone, he graciously refunded us back 100 dirham and was shocked to hear of such an event on his property. We hit the pillows around midnight and had a restless night of ZZZZs.

We enjoyed our evening in Rabat, despite emerging from the train station into an unemployment protest complete with riot police and ambulances. It appears the civil disobedience had wafted into the uncivil; we saw a few protestors writhing on the ground in pain and quickly made our way to a nearby hotel. We toured the exquisite kasbah, Andalusian gardens (where we got offered hash), the famous Tour Hassan, and the mausoleum of the current king's father. We grabbed a beer in a funky basement bar and feasted on free nuts. Our hotel room proved to be a dust-infested trap that we figured hadn't been opened since the 50s; I dosed up on allergy meds and kept my inhaler close at hand. A shower proved impossible in the stupidly small, low-ceiling bathroom, thus we hopped the train to Fes a bit worse for wear.

Despite reports of suicide bombings in Casablanca, we enjoyed five days in Fes, whose medina and surrounding area makes Marrakech look like a modern, first-world establishment. We took refuge in the nouville ville, or new city, enjoying Paris-like cafes, lattes, and amazing pastries every morning. It was a great refuge from the habitual street hassle we've encountered in the country. We hired a guide one day to take us deeper into the medina, whose 9,400+ lanes make it difficult, if not dangerous, to navigate on one's own. I was a bit disappointed by Hussein's leadership, which left us to fend for ourselves in a carpet warehouse for almost an hour while English-speaking Mohammed tried to sell us five gorgeous rugs for the low price of $12,000 U.S. He assured us we would more than pay for our trip by selling them at American auctions, but we didn't have the bank account for it, let alone the gall to imagine shipping them to my mother's house in Scottsdale, AZ, via a DHL truck.

A highlight of our Fes experience was a day trip to the 2nd-century Roman ruins at Volubulis. Lonely Planet makes this sound like a relatively easy adventure, but the reality is anything but for non-locals unused to the local means of road transport. Read on for a good laugh.

We took a morning train from Fes to Meknes, a mere 35 minutes away. From there, it was a simple 10-minute walk to the grand taxi station. Easy enough...but herein lies the catch. There are a few scammers around who will offer you a private ride to the ruins and back, including an hour to wander the site, for the seemlingly "low" price of 300 dirham, or $30+. We knew from our research that you should pay no more than 65 cents for the 28km ride to Moulay Idriss, then another 45 cents for the 3km onward to Volubulis itself. We quickly bypassed this cheat and found the parking lot of grand taxis. And now it gets exciting.

In simple words, grand taxis are nothing more than a bunch of really scummy-looking local dudes in REALLY old run-down Mercedes sedans that shuttle mostly locals around between cities. in Morocco you often see people standing by the side of the road waiting for these cars to pick them up. We paid 10 dirham each for a seat (about $1.10) for a half-hour ride to Moulay Idriss and then haggled for another grand taxi for the remaining 3km to the ruins. But here's the rub: we are crammed into the Mercedes with FOUR other Moroccans plus a driver. It's so ridiculous you just have to laugh. I had to hold onto David the whole time for fear he'd fall out of the door, which wasn't quite securely shut for the journey, not to mention that none of the rear windows roll down and it's about 90 degrees in the sedan. Despite the sub-standard conditions, I still managed to sneak in a lovely French conversation with two smelly guys sharing the back seat with us.

As if it couldn't get worse, once we arrived in Moulay Idriss, I managed to get in trouble with the "local boss" there for trying to arrange my own bargain with another French tourist and a cab driver for the onward journey to Volubulis. They jack up the price for the last 3km since they know it's the main draw. He told me I didn't have the right to make my own deals, and since we realized later he ran the only cab game in town and was our ticket back to Meknes a half-hour away, I did some serious ass-kissing. Thank you, California schools, for the 15+ years of French lessons! We waged our own silent protest on the stupid fees they charge for the second ride to the ruins by WALKING the 3km back down the road through the farms and cows and past the donkey carts coming back from market. It was pretty wild. The locals who passed us thought we were nuts for walking, but we didn't seem to mind. The day was lovely and the scenery impressive.

On our last night in Fes, the intestinal cramps that had plagued me earlier in the week escalated into a full-on attack of food poisoning. I was majorly ill the entire night, awaking at 4:30am to puke my guts out. I was completely empty from the other end as well and not a happy camper. We made it onto the 10:50am train to Casablanca, where we were staying for the night before catching our flight to Barcelona the next morning. Halfway through the train ride, David started feeling ill as well. By the time we checked into the hotel at 3:30pm, we were both down for the count. We never left the hotel, which was a good thing as more fanatics had blown themselves up in the city just two days earlier. We watched a lot of bad French game shows and a Moroccan tennis tournament, then managed to bag some ZZZs before our 8am wake-up call. We both couldn't wait to leave the country for greener pastures. We made it out of Morocco but not without our share of challenges. It was truly an experience we'll never forget!

Madness in Marrakech

2007-04-12T08:32:00.000-07:00

(From April 3-7)—I've not been in Marrakech a mere three hours and already the city has made an aggressive assault on my senses. I am tempted to retreat back into the tranquil confines of the riad, where we're holed up for our stay here. The riad is a beautifully restored old home that's been turned into a sort of B&B. There are tons of them all over Marrakech, many situated in the heart of the medina, the medieval walled city-within-a-city still in existence in many Moroccan towns. The riads boast traditional Marrakshi decor, beautiful rooftop terraces, friendly staff, home-cooked breakfasts, and best of all, serve as needed respites from the hectic world just outside their walls.

Words don't do justice to this place, which struggles to find its way in the 21st century amid an increasing onslaught of tourists while clinging to an incredibly ancient past. I'm spit out of our riad into the cramped dusty lanes of the souks, or traditional Arab marketplaces. As we stroll down the tiny alleys, the wrinkled elderly wrapped in traditional garb avoid frantic denim-clad teenagers zooming by on decrepit mopeds. Small children beg for handouts or try to sell you Kleenex packets for a few dirham; veiled women shop for vegetables, newly-skinned bloody sheep heads, and live chickens; hip 20-somethings hawk tagines, lamps, carpets, and tassles (what do they do with all those tassles?); middle-aged devout men hail the daily calls of the muzzein and head for the mosques to pray...and the scene repeats itself at every turn we take.

Upon arrival Tuesday, April 3, from Scotland (quite a lesson in contrasts, believe me), the taxi strike forced us to negotiate with two random locals combing the airport parking lot in search of suckers. It was hot, dusty, and dry, and red clay stretched on for miles. The two men advised us of the strike. With my guard up, I asked in French if this was a joke. They responded in French with a chuckle, "Do you see any taxis here?" I took a quick glance around and had to admit that yes, c'etait vrai, there were cleary no taxis in sight. There was hardly any sign of life for that matter. Most people had already left the airport, grabbing the local bus or packing into a horse carriage for the 15-minute ride into town. Luckily my French helped us sort out the mess, and after haggling the price down, we made our way with two Kiwis and a Londoner into an unsuspecting minivan for the ride into town.

What ensued afterwards was a good hour of frustration and confusion. Seems we'd booked a riad with Expedia but they work with an intermediary agency in Marrakech that manages most riad bookings in town. To make a very long story short (which for me is almost impossible), our driver got lost, insisted there was no such place called Riad Passions (which is what Expedia had confirmed), called the riad agency, and then out of nowhere amid six lanes of traffic, a young Moroccan guy jumped into the van and demanded our names. I thought it was a scam similar to those we'd encountered in Vietnam, where a taxi driver in cahoots with a local travel agency would suddenly stop to let a random guy into the cab, who would then try to force unwanted hotels upon you. I started to protest but looked down at the sheet of paper in the guy's hands, and to my amazement, saw David's name on the list. But the riad next to his name was different from what Expedia had confirmed. After several minutes of arguing in broken French (me) and Moroccan Arabic (them), we got dumped off at the riad agency to sort it out. An hour later, the boss had managed to explain to us in broken English and too-fast French that Expedia books a certain class of riad (e.g., three-star, or Passions) but the agency chooses the exact establishment. Hence the confusion, not to mention the price markup from Expedia (which we learned about too late after the fact).

Alors, we now had the riad confirmed but how to get there? The agency said goodbye and tried to send us on our way, but I complained and said we had no way of getting to the riad, let alone finding the place on our own. Besides, we shouldn't have to pay again for a ride since we'd already paid the van driver. The agency boss countered by telling me we should have stayed in the van and gone to the riad the young guy had indicated in the first place. We had to laugh at the absurdity of it and also could see her point. With the taxis on strike, we really had no options and hoofing it would have been out of the question; people get lost in the medina for days and never find their way out. :-) Thankfully, a young guy who worked as an agency driver took pity upon us and offered us a free ride in his private car. We gladly accepted and what ensued was a scene I'll never forget.

The ride through the new part of town was nothing too out of the ordinary (remember, we'd traveled through central Java and Bangkok not so long ago), but suddenly we turned down a dusty street and how Saad, our new friend, managed to manouever his vehicle through the narrow lanes of the medina I'll never quite understand. It was like trying to shove a giant square peg into a very tiny round hole. After winding through a maze of butchers, local shops, vegetable markets, and hundreds of Muslims, we arrived at a dark narrow lane with a big wooden door at the end. "Au pied d'ici," he advised. "On foot from here," I told David. I was certainly skeptical but quickly my doubts changed to awe as we stepped inside the riad and the caretaker shut the door. Absolute stillness, marble floors, stone walls, and mint tea and cookies waiting for us. The rooms were nicely decorated but there was no escaping the stench emanating from the bathroom; hundreds of years of old plumbing still remained, and you had to laugh at the opulence coupled with the stink.

In retrospect, not much happened in Marrakech, which in some ways is a blessing, although also somewhat of a letdown. We spent a lot of time in the riad agency trying to find a new place to stay for our last two nights, as our first riad was full, and a good chunk of time in the Internet cafe planning our next moves from there. Our friend Saad picked us up and drove us to the new riad, which was humorous as we soon realized we weren't that far from the first one, but again, never would have found the new one on our own. We ate in the huge Place Jemaa El Fna's cheap food stalls brimming with skewered meat, salads, yummy bread, gingerbread cake, and the spiciest tea I've ever tasted (touristy but fun nonetheless). We treated ourselves to yummy Italian gelato every afternoon. We sat in the rose garden surrounding the famous Koutoubia mosque and took a break from the madness. We watched snake charmers woo cobras and young children pose for photos with monkeys on leashes. We fended off aggressive street performers demanding money from Westerners; one hit me quite hard with a brass platter and I yelled back defiantly in my best French. We chuckled at what we dubbed "Fishing for Fanta," a makeshift carnival game fashioned out of long poles with plastic rings tied at the end and numerous bottles of soda pop lined up in a giant circle. Seems many a young Moroccan gets excited at the idea of futily trying to wrap the ring around the neck of a bottle to win a free liter of soda. In the U.S. you'd at least get a goldfish or a tacky stuffed animal prize. To each his own I guess. We didn't see any winners and we didn't waste our money on the game.

It's not easy for a woman to travel in Morocco, even with a man. David takes my arm or holds my hand but I still get leers from the male population. It's quite off-putting, but sadly I'm used to it now. On our last night in town, I asked a local shopkeeper if Muslim women were allowed to enter the mosques. What followed was an amazing conversation about religion and a delightful glimpse into traditional Islamic life and beliefs. The man was so devout he wouldn't shake my hand; hard-core Islamics can't touch women they don't know too well. We talked with him for almost 45 minutes, and his English was quite good. We felt blessed to have made the connection, as we found most Marraksis to be unfriendly and disinterested. We see very few Americans here and shared with this man the sad fact that many people in our country fear the Islamic culture and know little, if anything, about it. He enlightened us about his community and we were grateful for the opportunity to broaden our horizons. It was one of those special moments that reinforced what this trip is all about. In retrospect, it made our time in Marrakech worth the effort.

Three Weeks In...From the UK to Morocco

2007-04-12T06:28:00.000-07:00

We're holed up in a small Internet cafe in the "new city" section of Fez, Morocco's most mystifying (and challenging!) tourist destination, although we've seen few Westerners here in comparison to Marrakech, where they were abundant. It didn't help that we arrived in northern Africa the week before Easter. We wrongfully assumed that this being a Muslim country, the egg-laden holiday wouldn't be an issue, but it appears that Marrakech is an extremely popular tourist destination for Europeans and UK folks seeking respite from the grey, not to mention the locals on holiday as well. Alas, hotels were hard to come by and expensive. Not what we'd hoped for but it could have been worse.

We haven't been able to post until now because the Internet cafes in Scotland and Marrakech wouldn't allow us access to our blogs. While at the beach in Essaouria, we couldn’t stomach the idea of sitting indoors at a computer; the Moroccan sunshine and the Atlantic's cool waters were calling, not to mention the camel rides, rolling dunes, and yummy macaroons. Here in Fez, where time has all but stopped in the ancient medina and rain has clouded our experience, the connection is speedy and we're happy to be online finally conversing with you all.

I'll do my best to succinctly relay the first several weeks of our trip. London was uneventful and grey (surprise?), but it was fun to ride around town in the upstairs front seats of the double-decker buses and to reconnect with my girlfriend Nikki and her family in the burbs for a few days. Nikki (shown on the right) and I joined another girlfriend, Kathy (on the left), from our early 90s days as au pairs in Paris for a fun dinner out in Picadilly one night, and it was great to catch up, despite almost lighting the table on fire after downing an entire bottle of wine and several margaritas (some habits die hard). David gladly escaped the estrogen frenzy and entertained himself by strolling the theater district and grabbing a hamburger so the girls could have a night out.

Scotland proved a fresh of breath air and completely surprised us both. Edinburgh's imposing castle, Gothic monuments, and cozy atmosphere welcomed us with open arms, as did the great hotel we found online for the low price of $80/night, a true steal in the UK. We ended up spending eight nights in Scotland as we couldn't arrange a cheap flight to Morocco before then, so we treated ourselves to two days in the Highlands, which was pure bliss. We rode a glorious train through winding hills and lovely lakes, then settled into a quaint B&B run by a lovely English couple from Devon. We drank pints of warm ale in the local pub and struggled to understand the Highland drawl. We hiked all morning and afternoon deep into Glen Nevis, an amazing valley rivaling those in Switzerland, if not in scale then at least in scenery. We ate lunch under the imposing shadow of Ben Nevis, the UK’s highest mountain at 4,400 feet. Shaggy Highland cattle mingled along the river with herds of fluffy sheep as David sketched to his heart’s content and I busied myself with a Kakuro puzzle. It was warm out and we relished the wearing of t-shirts after having donned mittens, scarves, and multiple layers of clothing the previous week to fight off the requisite late-March chill.

After seven hours of hiking along the river and relaxing in the fields, we arrived deep in the valley at 5:00pm and figured we had a good few hours’ hike back along the road. Luckily a car full of friendly-looking climbers offered us a lift into town. We piled into the back of a small Renault amid crampons and helmets, keeping a safe distance from the ice-ax-wielding German guy next to us. A nice group of folks, those guys. Their generosity allowed us to be in the pub by 6:45pm and down a yummy dinner in less time than it would have taken us to walk the entire way back.

We returned to Edinburgh late Sunday night and spent our last day in town wandering leisurely up to Calton Hill. We basked in sunshine and stunning city views while cheering the appearance of the Firth of Forth, which had been obscured all week by fog and grey clouds. David sketched a local monument and I wrote in my journal while a busload of Chinese tourists looked on. Several of the men were fasincated with David’s art supplies; one even grabbed David’s kneaded gray eraser and proceeded to play with it like it was Silly Putty. We chuckled and talked about China; they were impressed to learn we’d be visiting there this summer. Later that evening, we celebrated our second wedding anniversary with a lovely splurge in a chic local restaurant. We’d been subsisting on free hotel breakfasts, cheap Marks & Spencer sandwiches (surprisingly good!), and flat ale in the local pubs. That night we feasted on Italian salads, Tuscan red wine, and yummy roasted chicken and pasta. We capped it off with a tribute to the locals and ordered the awesome sticky toffee pudding. It was a great end to our time in the UK. Morocco was next on the list, and we had no idea what we’d be in for.

The Courage to Venture Beyond

2007-03-08T12:00:00.000-08:00

(An edited version of this entry appeared in Common Ground magazine, August 2007, SF Bay Area edition.)

My husband David and I have lived in four sublet apartments this past year. Our lives have been anything but ordinary. In November of 2005 we vacated our San Francisco apartment, threw everything we owned into a 10’x15’ storage unit, left our car with a solar battery charger in a friend’s driveway, and took off for 11 magical weeks in Southeast Asia. The journey was part belated honeymoon, part trip of a lifetime. We returned refreshed to the Bay Area for several months, then packed the car to the gills and headed to Seattle in search of a more affordable quality of life.

After four months in the Pacific Northwest, as the American dream began to crumble before our eyes and my California-born-and-raised psyche wore thin with winter fast approaching, we had an epiphany. There had to be more to life than what we’d envisioned for our late-30s selves. Our innocent plan to get married, purchase a house, adopt a shelter dog, have a baby, buy a Subaru Outback, and nestle down into suburban oblivion with other bleary-eyed folks wasn’t sitting right with our souls.

We were thirsty for something we couldn’t quite pinpoint. With our stuff still in storage, no house to call home, no kids to raise, and a decent lump of dough in the bank, we took a bold leap. Why not spend that down payment money on something that really mattered? We’d felt most satisfied and at our best when thrust into other cultures and challenged by exotic experiences. Thus a yearlong adventure around the world was born.

Bursting with initial excitement, we Googled farm stays in New Zealand. I contacted a non-profit about volunteering in Rwanda. My husband daydreamed about leaving his successful seven-year job (freedom!). Our creative minds visualized a book deal. We were going global, and as I allowed the truth to unfold, I was utterly terrified. Could we pull this off with only a few months’ planning? Would we survive 365 days in cheap guesthouses? Could I stomach three meals a day on the road? Would I recognize my best friend’s toddler in a year? Would I miss my family desperately? Could I give up the creature comforts we Americans so readily enjoy?

The answer, despite occasional bouts of anxiety, is a resounding “YES!” What we’re doing is daunting, but it’s also exciting, bold, and in a Buddhist sort of way, necessary. Call it blissful karma that on New Year’s Day, as we awoke back in San Francisco to begin planning the adventure that will change our lives, this E.M. Forster gem appeared in my inbox (I receive a daily peace quote from a local Zen center): “We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” So true, so true!

That said, arranging a trip of this magnitude is no easy feat, despite my efforts to allow it to just be. There’s insurance to buy, bills to settle, a car to sell, mail to forward, gear to secure, malaria pills to ponder, shots to endure, doctors to visit, taxes to pay, living wills to execute, banks to consult, visas to acquire, airline tickets to purchase, family and friends to bid farewell…ah, if the list seems never-ending at times, that’s because it IS.

And it doesn’t help that I’m a recovering Type-A, despite having sought refuge in Eastern religion ten years ago. Old habits die hard, and my desire for control often rears its ugly head. I’m deeply grateful for my daily yoga practice; for the Bhagavad Gita; for my half-hearted attempts to sit each morning; for my Seattle-based Buddhist coach who graciously replies to my frantic emails; for the support of family and friends; and for my husband, who agreed to undertake this wild journey with me in the first place. My incessant plea of “I need to travel more” was answered, which just further validates the power of intention. It is real, and I have $7,000 worth of airline tickets and a one-year visa for India to prove it.

Most people with whom we share our story marvel at our ability to pull it off. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin” is something we hear often. David reminds me that most folks don’t do what we’re doing because it’s hard, not to mention downright scary. It’s only when I speak to Zen-y others that I’m blessed with an instantaneous smile, an admirable hug, an “Awesome” reply. Seems folks who’ve dabbled in Eastern practices have an easier time picturing the nomadic path we’ve chosen. Go figure.

We keep serving up our daily routine, often because we don’t know any differently. We’re simply not aware that we could shake things up a bit and still be okay. But I don’t believe it really benefits us to stick with the familiar, to stay mired in our habitual thoughts, to remain sheltered in our day-to-day patterns. As hard as it is to push outside that comfort zone, it’s in so doing that we truly grow as human beings and become more fulfilled.

Trust yourself to find the courage to venture beyond what you know, and you’ll blossom into something greater than you could ever fathom. I’m living proof, and it feels great.