Friday, May 23, 2008

Monsagrati, Italy - Viva gli sposi!



How quickly we adapt. On arrival in Venice, Italy, I found myself clasping my hands together in a Thai wai and bowing deeply as I said "grazie..." The transition from Southeast Asia to Europe has been a little surreal. To come from a place where everyone bargains intensely over one dollar to the land of Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana, and Prada makes Italy seem either a fairy tale or a farce.



There really is no other place like Venice on Earth. Well, except for The Venetian in Vegas, which looks incredibly like the real thing minus the grafitti on every building. It has such a rich history as the trading center of the mideval world and the temporary home to so many famous artists such as Vivaldi, Wagner, Byron, Shelley, Browning, and Henry James. Today it seems to exist soley for tourists and the prices show it! I think it would be possible to live in Venice for years and never really penetrate a deeply closed-off Venetian society in which the same families have owned the same mansions for hundreds of years.



Spent a week in the sinking city and then headed east to meet up with some friends in a Lucca. I'm pretty sure the name Lucca translates into "the city of extremely well-dressed ederly men riding bycicles." My favorite Lucca story occured when asking an employee of a prominent cell phone company the location of a good local wine bar. He began to explain, then paused, sighed deeply, and gravely replied, "I will show you." He then came with us, left the store unattended, and sat for a half hour at the wine bar nursing a capucino. This illustrates both the friendliness of the Italians and their attitude that work comes second to life. My theory is that they can survive because the competition has the same attitude. Two of my best friends from home were married in a beautiful ceremony at the Villa Denise in Monsagrati, a tiny village nestled in the vineyard-covered hills of Tuscany 13 km north of Lucca.
The beautiful villa was complete with a swimming pool, a grass tennis court, the obligatory classical nude statues, and locally produced wine. We were lucky enough to stay at the villa for a full week. On the train from Venice to Lucca I met two wonderful women from Minnesota who ended up coming to the wedding. One of them turned out to be a floral designer who is featured on the local Minnesota news and has written a floral design book. On the day of the wedding she spontaneously fashioned a beautiful bridal boquet and adding some floral decorations to the villa using flowers from the garden. Its incredible how things always work out. The owners of the villa cooked the multi-course wedding feast and ate with us, constantly raising their glasses (full of the wine they made) and cheering to the happy couple, "Viva gli sposi!"





From Monsagrati we took some day trips back to Lucca and to Pisa. Its true. The tower leans. Now if I could only figure out how to spin my engineering mistakes into lucrative tourist destinations...

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Cambodia - Emotional times





I decided to listen to the advice of other travellers and go to Cambodia to see the ancient temples of Angkor. I'm glad I did; the temples are amazing, eerie, and unlike anything I've ever seen before. I spent two full days, sunset to sunrise, wandering around this UNESCO world heritage site and I don't think I even saw half of it. Siem Reap is a very modern, touristy city complete with wi-fi hotspots. Oddly enough, they use US dollars as currency in Cambodia and ATMS distribute dollars. The official currency is the Cambodian riel (4000 r = 1 USD) but the dollar is apparently a lot more stable (well, thats the idea anyway). Children were begging for money everywhere around the temples. This was really hard to see, but some of it was definitely theatrical as one kid pulled out a flashy Motorola Razr cell phone after he gave up trying to get a dollar from me!




From Siem Reap I took a boat through the Tonle Sap lake and down the Sangket River to Battambang, Cambodia's second largest city. The boat ride was advertised to take anywhere from three to eight hours. It took nine hours on a rickety boat with water being pumped out continuously. The driver sat at the front of the 30 ft boat and to accelerate he pushed down on a string attached to the engine throttle in the back of the boat. The river was very low because its the dry season and several times we bottomed out and some of the guys had to jump out and push the boat along. The scenery along the river was stunningly beautiful. Huts lined the entire length of the river and I saw people bathing, cooking, and washing in the water. There were children everywhere and they would all jump up and down and wave and dance and scream "hello" when they saw the boat full of foreigners float by. There seem to be kids everywhere in Cambodia. I heard an incredible statistic that 40% of the population is less than 16 years old.

In Battambang I had the opportunity to ride a norry, or "bamboo train." Train tracks run near the town and so the locals have rigged up their own engine-powered bamboo carts that ride along the tracks. If a real train comes down the line they pull the cart off quickly. It was a beautiful, if bumby, ride through the countryside.



The infrastructure is pretty poor in Cambodia. Some of the roads are really bad and I never saw a gasoline station, only gas being sold in bottles by the side of the road. However, the people I talked to say that the roads have been improving for the past five years and things keep getting better.

One afternoon in Battambang I met Nareth, a local Cambodian who founded a free English school for kids in his nearby village. Currently the school has 340 students who voluntarily study English in the evening. I hopped on the back of Nareth's motorbike and visited the school. I was a guest speaker in the advanced conversation class, where I was asked such classics as "who is your sweetheart?" and "how many kids do you have?" The kids definitely see learning English as the way to get a good job. The teachers volunteer their time as well. Currently they are trying to raise $300 to buy a generator for the school.

Nareth also told me some of his personal stories about his family and the Khmer Rouge. His grandfather, a doctor, was killed during the initial purges of the 70s. As recent as 1991 the Khmer Rouge was still sweeping through the village, killing able bodied men. Nareth remembers hiding neck deep in the river to avoid capture. These stories of life under the Khmer Rouge, the many killing fields, and the on-going land mine problems have really affected me. I find myself becomming angry about things I never used to pay any attention.

From Battambang I took several buses to come back to Thailand. I had heard a lot of horror stories about the border crossing but it went really smoothly. Its both a relief and a let-down to be back in the comparative wealth and stability of Thailand.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Pang Mapa, Thailand - Cave Lodge



I decided to hire a scooter for a couple days and check out a remote area of northern Thailand. The woman at the rental shop only said, "hmmm... bring back the other bike and let me give you good bike." ha! Besides better brakes, the new Honda Icon actually had great features like a horn and an odometer, which came in handy when trying to figure out if the bunch of huts I just passed was actually the village I was trying to find. Also, several places have multiple names which resulted in some confusing fun! Before I set out I did some research on the condition of the local roads and used the "terrain" feature on google maps to ensure that the mountain roads weren't too steep. Riding steep downhills on a bike without gears is not my favorite thing to do.

Left Pai and traveled to Soppong, then continued north and ended up in Ban Tham. The ride was broken up by photo stops and waiting for herds of wandering cows to clear the road. The cows here all wear wooden cow bells and as a herd moves along they create a really pleasing, relaxing sound
stayed for three nights at Cave Lodge, a clustering of bungalows built by an eccentric Australian, John Spies, who traveled to Thailand 30 years ago and never left. John has spent his time here learning the hill tribe languages, photographing the tribes, and publishing articles about the area. He has also created detailed maps of the surrounding area, including hundreds of caves that hold 2000 year old carved teak coffins. Very little is known about these coffins and the people who placed them there. You can see some of his AMAZING tribal photographs here: http://www.cavelodge.com/tpics.htm He has also published an autobiographical account of his time in this region and its a fascinating read full of local history, politics, and archeology.

I stayed in the Ban Tham region three days. Did several hikes, visited some local hill tribes, and went into a couple caves. This area contains such a mix of people. The women working at the lodge spoke Shan, not Thai, and the local hill tribes speak yet another language. I paid some of the local villagers to guide me through various caves. The only English word one guide knew was "hello." He would point to a stalactite. "Hello." He would gesture down a dark tunnel. "Hello." Or he would wave good-bye. "Hello, hello."

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Pai, Thailand - The life of Pai

Found my groove here in Pai! Pai is one of the best towns I've visited yet. The minibus here from Chiang Mai took about 3 hours on curvy, mountain roads. Pai is northwest of Chiang Mai and is a little over 100k from the Burmese border. The central town only has about 6 main roads and motorbikes vastly outnumber cars. Cafes, art and yoga studios, used book stores, restaurants, and hill tribe vendors line the streets. The town is renowned for its live music scene. It sounds pretty touristy but in fact there are very little touristy sights to see. The town population is an interesting mix of Thai, Thai-Chinese, hill tribe people (including the hill tribe called Karen!!!), Muslims, and farangs (westerners) who just never left. The result is an interesting blend of people who feel free just to be themselves.

The power in the town has gone out for a few hours in the evening time each night that I've been here. It doesn't seem to be planned, but it also doesn't really seem to bother anyone. Candles appear instantly and light the shops and streets, creating a beautiful scene absent of the humming of air conditioners and blaring Thai television dramas. I get the sense that electricity is considered nice, but not seen as a necessity.

Today was an amazing day. I rented a scooter (3 USD per 24 hrs) and zipped around town and the surrounding countryside. (Yes, my bike was pink with a basket on the front.) The minimal traffic in this area is ideal for motorbikes. Riding on the left was a surprisingly easy adjustment. It felt so good to be on the road in charge of my own destiny, free to stop at whatever roadside looked interesting. Buses are cheap and convenient, but they don't offer the luxury of roaming. I visited a hilltop wat (temple), drove past a lot of cows, water buffalo, and elephants, and tried to go to a waterfall. I say tried because I had to hike to it from the road and about 3k along the trail there was a small fire that was next to the trail. The hill tribe people do this as part of their farming routine. Anyways, it looked like it was growing and I didn't want to get trapped on the other side! So I turned around. Which was OK because its been over 100 degrees F with high humidity. Really not ideal weather for hiking.

Its amazing how quickly we can adapt to our surroundings. I've noticed on my travels that the first week or so in a new country is a bit overwhelming and strange, but then the new country seems completely normal. For example, I'd been sitting here typing, completely at ease, and then a gecko just ran across the computer desk. Oh yeah, I'm in Thailand!



Sidenote: I've been corresponding with family and some tech-savvy friends using Skype, a VOIP program thats FREE when talking computer to computer. The sound quality is amazing and I can't recommend it enough. You should give it a try if you haven't already. The internet cafes are full of travelers using it. For example, the German girl next to me was just talking to her roommate and her cat. Mostly her cat.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Chiang Mai, Thailand - Songkran Festival 2551

"Sa-wat dee kaa" from Thailand!



Spent a quick day in Bangkok touring the city on a tuk-tuk (gems? perhaps a tailor-made outfit? special deal for you!) and absorbing the dirty, energized chaos that is the capital city. Grabbed a bus, complete with pink frilly curtains and teddy bear blankets, north 10 hours to Chiang Mai and immediately left for three days on a guided jungle trek. Actually there wasn't much trekking but that was OK because its pretty hot (90's F) and very humid. The activities which included bamboo rafting and riding elephants were touristy but fun nonetheless. The northern landscape was a beautiful montage of waterfalls, bamboo bridges, elephants, water buffalo, and rice fields. However the air was quite hazy due to the slash-and-burn techniques used in the rice fields. The misquitos haven't been as bad as I feared, but deet is still a dear friend of mine. I've decided not to use the malaria pills until I get to more remote regions.

I love this picture of the "remote" Thai village we stayed at on the trek...complete with motorbike and solar panel. The solar panels are curtousy of His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the current king of Thailand who has been in power for over 60 years! He is very popular for his public works projects, which include financial incentives for the farmers to replace their opium production with other crops. There are billboard-size pictures of the king and queen posted in every town. If you criticize the royal family you can go to jail for up to fifteen years.

After the trek I returned to Chiang Mai and participated in the water world that is the Songkran Festival, otherwise known as New Year's 2551 (after Buddha). For three days the Thais celebrate New Years by throwing massive amounts of water on anyone and everyone. Pickup trucks loaded with families cruise the streets armed with buckets and water guns. The square moat around the city is lined with people diping buckets and filling up water pistols. Its IMPOSSIBLE to stay dry and is incredible fun - everyone is screaming, smiling and laughing. The only downside is that a lot of the water smells like toilet water or worse. After being doused in it over and over I'm just thankful I got that Typhoid shot!

Chaing Mai is a charming, walkable city full of amazing Wats and friendly people. One of the highlights of my trip so far was spending an afternoon talking with a Buddhist monk. The monks hold "office hours" to practice their English and westerners are free to ask questions about Buddhism, Thai culture, monk life, and anything else really. The monk I spoke with was in love with literature and just received a scholarship to study in Philadelphia. He was really funny and insightful and professed that KFC is his favorite food!



I love the way the monk's brilliant saffron robes brighten the cityscape.





Ahhh... foot massage with my Canadian friends. The Thais seem to treat massages as a necessary item to maintain a healthy lifestyle, rather than a special treat to pamper oneself. At 3 USD/hour for a massage I'm not going to argue with them.



The Canadian girls were incredible - they had both worked in Kenya and had wonderful and horrible stories. The corruption that exists there in all forms of power (even, or maybe especially, in the foreign funded NGOs) was eye-opening. One of the girls was there during the civil war following the December elections and was stranded for a month in the middle of the bloodshed. Truely some of the most chilling stories I have ever heard. Yet it was obvious that they both had fallen in love with Kenya, the land and people, and Africa in general. They have been following the latest news about Mugabe and Zimbabwe with the hope that the election results won't trigger the violence that happened in Kenya. Being abroad I hear a lot more world news than I do at home.



I'm enjoying Thailand immensely but still a little bit on sensory overload. Still haven't quite found my groove here. I've discoverd I can live a very comforatable Western lifestyle here for very little money, which is great and a welcome change from AUS and NZ.
Good Thai food from street vendors costs as little as 1 USD and I'm living it up in guesthouses with my own room and air con for about 12USD/night. The markets are incredible, such as the night market here in Chiang Mai. (I've fallen in love with the loose fitting Thai pants which are great for the hot weather and feel like I'm wearing PJ's all day.) However, living a western lifestyle is not the point of traveling and not very fulfulling. Hopefully I will get more immersed as the days progress. I'm trying to learn some Thai - if any Thai person wants to have a conversation that involves saying hello, good-bye, thank-you, counting to ten, mentioning bananas or cocoa plants, and calling something beautiful then I'm set.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Melbourne, AUS - Go Doggies!!!

Wrapping up a week in lovely Melbourne before I head off to Thailand. Its been really nice to spend more than a few days in one place, relax, and just enjoy the city. Went to Hamer Hall in the Vic Arts Center to see the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and choir perform Verdi's Requiem, one of my favorite choral works. I sung that it college and it took me back, way back, like 5 years ago:)

I also attended an Australian Football League, or "footy," game at the Telstra dome. Footy is like a cross between rugby and soccer, really fast paced and high scoring. So basically, the opposite of American football. Footy is insanely popular here; nine of the sixteen teams in the league are based in Melbourne. The game I went to was SO much fun! I went by myself but ended up sitting next to two girls who were rabid Bulldog fans and who insisted on buying me beers and teaching me all the Doggie songs and cheers. At halftime there was a fan contest to dance around and we won and were featured on the jumbo TV in the stadium! One of the girls received a prize of free cable for a year or something. The game was awesome as well - the Dogs were down during the first quarter, rallied in Q2 and Q3, and then obliterated the St. Kilda Saints in Q4. The girls tried to make me promise to come back the next week since I seemed to be good luck for the team. Tempting...

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Alice Springs, Aus - Easter in The Outback





It’s strange to feel that you’ve come home to a place you’ve never been before. I had this overwhelming sensation the first night of a ten day outback safari. We were camping in the Flinders Ranges just north of Adelaide and I snuck away from the Toyota Land Cruiser and the rest of the group to photograph the pink sunset coupled with the brilliant rock formations and rising moon. Suddenly it just all felt so right, like I had come home. Every night we slept in swags under the stars. I slept better on the trip than I have in hostels, despite the spiders and snakes and other critters that live the desert. I have become an expert at identifying the pointers and the Southern Cross.





Unfortunately we had such a bright moon for most of the trip that it was hard to see the stars in their full glory, but at least the full moon meant we didn’t have to use head torches in the night to find a good bush to pee behind! Even in the rugged conditions the food was great. One night we did burritos, only instead of beef or chicken the meat was skippy (kangaroo). In the Flinder Ranges we looked at aboriginal cave paintings, layers of which date back 50,000 years! From the Flinders we headed north to the aboriginal community of Iga-Warta, where we listened to creation stories around the campfire and had our faces painted with ochre. We headed up along the route of the Old Ghan Railway, even stopping to collect some of the abandoned wood sleepers to use as firewood. While we traveled along mostly unsealed roads and might go hours without seeing other cars, there would be occasional signs of other humans in the form of burned-out cars by the side of the road or other random things such as the larger-than-life sculptures just north of Manree.



This was the start of a long internal debate; do deserts attract eccentric people or do deserts make people just a little bit different?

Speaking of different, what do you think of my new headgear?




We crossed the dingo fence, which keeps dingos out of sheep country and at over 3000 miles is the world’s longest fence. The night we camped near William Creek happened to be the Equinox and we watched the sun set over one horizon, only to turn around to the opposite horizon and watch the full moon rise minutes later.




From William Creek (pop. 5) we headed west to Coober Pedy, an … odd place where the majority of the residents live underground due to the extreme heat. Coober Pedy is an opal mining town, but is well known for both the opals and its lawlessness. With so many mining shafts there are a lot of places for people to disappear. We took a tour of an underground home but I had to bail out halfway through because I felt too claustrophobic - you try being in a small underground room with 40 people, the lights out, and no airshaft! I had been really excited to see the place, but a few hours was enough and I couldn’t wait to leave.

From Coober Pedy we headed north through the Moon Plain and the Painted Desert. The Painted Desert was my favorite place of the whole trip. The brilliant colors of this area are incredible, and watching the sunset and the following sunrise here was amazing.

As we jostled along the dirt roads, I was continually amazed at how much wildlife there is in the seemingly inhospitable desert. We saw wild brumbies (mustangs), camels, lizards, spiders, and heard some howling dingos. Did you know Australia has the second-largest population of wild camels in the world?

Next we traveled north to Oodnadatta, home of the famous Pink Roadhouse. They were actually looking for help…tempting… That afternoon, amazingly, it began to rain! Nothing too hard, but a steady rain the lasted long enough to clear the dust from the air and cool us off as we swam and drank beer in the Dalhousie Hot Springs. I've learned Tooheys is the Coors Light of Australia. Drinking anything else in the desert would just be wrong.




The following day we crossed the border from South Australia into the Northern Territory and visited the geographical center of Australia. About as interesting as it sounds. Apparently nearby there were some dead camel carcasses that were missing their heads, but we only heard about these after we left. Australia definitely has their brand of rednecks. We headed west and made it to the famous Uluru (Ayer’s Rock) for the sunset. We stayed in the area the next day and hiked through the nearby Olga Mountains in Kata Tjuta. We watched the sunset over Ulura again, only this time from a popular viewing spot loaded with other tour buses and complete with helicopters flying overhead. It was pretty funny and I was really relieved that I had seen so much more of the outback than just that very touristy area.

The following morning we did the 9 km base walk around Uluru. There is a climb you can do to the top but because Uluru is such a sacred aboriginal site climbing on the rock is highly discouraged. There are even features on Uluru that hold such spiritual significance that photographing these areas is prohibited. I think it’s fantastic that such a place can be touristy and still respectful of traditional ways, especially in a country that has such a sad and disturbing past in regards to the aboriginals. From Uluru we went to Kings Canyon, yet another gorgeous place with brilliant red rock formations. Pictures, at least mine, don’t do these places justice. We spent our last night dancing around the campfire in the West MacDonnel National Park.
Then it was a quick stop in the Glen Halen Gorge and back to civilization in Alice Springs. Coming back to civilization felt weird. In the desert I had become used to being dirty and wearing the same clothes every day. Relative to the open outback expanses, Alice Springs (not a big city) seemed crowded.



As with all things, it was the people who made this trip great. You bond pretty quickly with people when you are forced together in the middle of the outback, deprived of showers and toilets, and crammed together in the back of a Land Cruiser singing your heart out to 80’s pop songs...