One might assume that Ken and I, after traveling for over seven months, would be adept at navigating the entry requirements and procedures for arrival into foreign countries.  Usually it is quite simple.  Arrive.  Get visa.  Get luggage.  Get taxi.  When we arrived at the airport in Kathmandu however we encountered a confluence of events that defied logic and greatly complicated our entry into Nepal.  Nepal, like many countries, allows you to obtain an entry visa by purchasing it in the airport upon arrival.   When we arrived, we had just spent three weeks in India so Indian rupees were our only source of legal tender to pay for our visa into Nepal, but Nepal does not accept visa payment in Indian rupees even though they accept several other foreign currencies.  The currency exchange desk in the arrivals hall at Kathmandu airport also does not exchange Indian rupees.  Furthermore, neither the currency exchange desk nor the visa desk would accept a credit card.  The obvious solution was to withdraw money from an ATM, but the closest ATM was outside the airport.  The result:  Ken and I were stuck in the arrivals terminal at the Kathmandu airport without any way to pay for a visa to enter the country, and the only way we could get money to pay for the visa would be to first enter the country without one.  Ken went to discuss our dilemma with the guard at the exit, who told him “you have a problem.”  Thanks.

With no solution in sight, Ken decided he had to do the only logical thing…break into Nepal.  Ok, so the guard did take pity on us and agreed that Ken should do it and if he made it back, he would let him back in.  So out Ken went, into Nepal without a visa, in search of visa money, while I waited on the visa line desperately hoping that he would not get arrested and that he would make it back out of Nepal and into the airport.  I really did not want to sleep in the arrivals terminal.

The line was long and moved slowly.  Minutes passed.  No sign of Ken.  I started to get worried and tried to catch sight of him somewhere.  Nothing.  Finally, just as it was almost my turn at the visa counter, he arrived!  He was back in one piece, his pockets now full of Nepalese currency!  We could enter the country (legally)!  However, when we tried to pay for our visas we were told that we could not pay with Nepalese rupees because Nepal does not accept Nepalese rupees as payment for a Nepalese visa.  I kid you not.  It was just too much, so we turned around and came home.   Ken had done Nepal anyway.

Not really.  Luckily for us, the money exchange counter DID accept Nepalese currency (at least something went right) and we exchanged some cash into none other than United States dollars.  Finally we were issued visas to enter Nepal.  Since there are no pics yet, and everybody likes kids, here is a gratuitous shot of a little kid feeding/chasing pigeons in Kathmandu:

Entry issues aside, we were excited to be in Nepal.  We planned to spend a couple of days in Kathmandu and then head out on a five day trek in the Annapurna region of the Himalayas.  Nepal is a trekking mecca, and many people travel to the country to trek something called the Annapurna Circuit, which is an 18 – 20 day trek in the Annapurna region.  Given that we had never trekked before, and were possibly not in the best shape of our lives after roaming the earth for seven months without even one stop at a treadmill, we decided on the shorter Annapurna foothills, or Poon Hill, trek.

Before heading out on our trek, however, we would spend a few days in Kathmandu seeing the sights of the city and stocking up on trekking gear which is plentiful and cheap in the Kathmandu area of Thamel.  On our first full day in Nepal, we headed out into the city from behind the walls of our hotel and full on into the insanity that is Kathmandu.  Flying into the city, as I looked out the window of the plane, I honestly could not believe how huge and sprawling Kathmandu appeared from the sky.  On the ground however it appears that the city is just not big enough for all the stores, wares, things, animals and people packed into its buildings and streets.  It is stuffed with people, people walking, riding mopeds, sleeping on the street, selling goods on the curb, pushing like sardines into cabs, transporting huge bundles of goods on their backs, selling tuk tuk rides, asking for money, people coming and going in a bustling manic street scene.  Traffic tangles in the narrow roads.  Animals wander freely around the streets.  The sound of honking car horns fills the dusty air.  Wandering through the market stalls and narrow streets is simultaneously invigorating, astonishing and overwhelming.  We did a short walking tour, past several stupas, through a market and into Durbar Square, Kathmandu’s major tourist site, but really just experiencing the city was an adventure in itself.

The over-crowded markets of Kathmandu:

Here is a “Stupa” in the city center:

And a shot taken in Durbar Square:

While in Kathmandu we also met our sherpa, Timba, who would guide us on our Himalayan adventure, and we were assured by him and the head of the trekking agency that the Poon Hill trek was very nice and “easy” so we figured we would make it through without too much trouble.  Really, how hard could trekking in the Himalayas be?

Aside from shopping and sightseeing, we did not do that much in Kathmandu except hang out in our luxurious five-star hotel, the Hyatt Regency.  This place is an oasis of tranquility in the midst of the frantic city, and in fact, as we ate a gourmet brunch one day while listening to a jazz band in a small garden, I really felt like I was back at the hotel in New Jersey where we got married.  We decided to stay at the Hyatt because we knew we would be returning to the same hotel after our trek so that we could check any extra luggage that we did not want to bring with us into the mountains, and we decided it would be nice to stay someplace luxurious after five days roughing it.  This turned out to be a very good decision.  Here is Ken at the hotel’s “Jazz Brunch”:

Our trek would begin from a place called Nayapul, which is not anywhere near Kathmandu, so after a few days in Kathamandu we flew to another city, Pokhara, and spent the night there before beginning our journey.  Pokhara is a nice enough town, smaller than Kathmandu, not as hectic and on the shores of a very picturesque lake.  Here is a picture of the lake (with people washing their clothes):

When we arrived in the morning we did some sightseeing, which included a visit to one of Pokhara’s main attractions, a cave chock full of hundreds of sleeping bats.  Ok, aside from the lake, sightseeing in Pokhara is really not that spectacular.  When we got to the entrance of the bat cave, the woman at the gate told us we should really bring a guide with us so that we could find the exit to the cave, but we figured we really didn’t need one and declined.  I mean, how hard could it be to find the exit?  As it turns out, hard.  We walked into the cave down a flight of stairs, but for some reason the “exit” is, well, a teeny tiny hole at the top of a sheer rock wall that you have to scramble up in the dark.  I could barely even get up the last part of the wall, and got to know my sherpa quite intimately when he just pushed me up by the butt.  Really, we hardly even knew each other!  The cave was pitch black, the rocks were wet and we could only see because we had flashlights strapped to our head. At some point I realized we should have just turned around and gone out the entrance, but by then it was too late and anyway I did not want to try to climb down the wet rocks in the dark in a cave full of sleeping bats. Here are a few of the bats (there were tons of them in there):

At this point I was rather unhappy and that feeling only increased when I saw the exit itself — or barely saw it because it was so tiny.  I thought Ken was going to get stuck and we would have to pry him out with the jaws of life, which I am sure they do not have in Nepal.  We hadn’t even started trekking yet, and here we were rock climbing in some pitch black bat den.  I really hoped this was not a harbinger of things to come!   Lo and behold, Ken made it out of the cave sans jaws of life and even took a few pictures of the rest of us squeezing up through the tiny exit.   Here I am coming out:

Anyway, none the worse for wear, we spent the rest of the day eating lunch beside the beautiful lake in Pokhara and exploring the town which is full of small shops and cafes, and then went back to our hotel and spent the night trying not to touch anything in our really dirty hotel room.

Ok, I know I told you that we came to Nepal to trek and here I am many paragraphs into this blog and we still have not started trekking.  You might be asking yourself when exactly I am going to get to the trekking part of Nepal.  Quite honestly, that is exactly how we ourselves felt at this point too.  We came to Nepal to trek and so far had spent alot of time doing everything except trekking.  Lucky for you, I will begin the trek in the next paragraph and you will not have to take a two hour taxi ride to get to the beginning of the trail.  Like we did.  In a really small cramped smelly cab.

But finally, we were there.  Here.  The beginning of our trek.  Hooray!

Now, looking back, I realize that trekking is a bit like marriage, and on that first morning as we set off, we were enjoying a trekking honeymoon.  We began following a relatively flat dirt path along a bubbling river.  As we walked the sun broke through the clouds and the cool morning mist faded as the brilliant blue sky sparkled above us.  We passed by a beautiful cascading waterfall, over and through winding brooks and alongside field after field of golden hay.  We passed a group of kids trying to shake a friend from the top of a pole, another group of youngsters made a game of jumping over hay bales and still others harvested by riding on a small plow behind a lone black mule.  Birds twittered and danced in the tree tops.  Occasionally as we walked we would come upon a group of mules or horses carrying packages up into the higher climes, alerted to their presence by the tinkling of bells that they wore around their necks.  Ah…I loved trekking that morning, trekking was fun and easy and beautiful and flat.

Here are the kids playing their game of shake the pole until the kid on top falls off and breaks his neck:

And a shot of one of the many farms:

About two hours into our glorious trek, we came upon some stairs and began going up.  I did not think much of it.  The scenery continued to hold all of my attention and distract me from the incessant upward climb.  As we climbed up and up, we walked amongst terraced farmland cut deeply into the steeps, held in place by stone walls that wound and wandered across the green mountainside.  If I had bothered to pay attention, instead of gaping in awe at the scene surrounding me, I might have noticed that there was no end in sight to the stairs we were climbing.  After an hour climbing, we stopped for lunch still unsuspecting about how many more stairs we would have to endure before reaching our lodge for the night.  We happily chowed down on a delicious meal, reveling in the sunshine and the spectacular views.  What were a few stairs?

Here I am making my way up the endless stairs:

Here is a shot of the mountains which have been ‘terraced’ for farming:

Let me take this opportunity to introduce you to our porter.  As is customary with trekkers in Nepal, we hired not only a guide (our sherpa, Timba) to lead us on our trek, but also a porter who was charged with carrying our big backpack with all our stuff for our five days in the mountains.  We packed as light as possible (notice the lack of wardrobe changes in the pictures), and our sherpa even told us our bag was very light, saying it would be “too easy” for our porter.  We have a few pictures of our porter carrying our bag. You can decide whether it looks too easy.  Personally, I barely made it up the mountain carrying just my little day pack.  But then again, the Nepalese are strangely and remarkably strong.  Here he is in front of me:

Our porter’s story, however, does not begin and end with carrying our bag.  Before joining our little expedition, he and our sherpa had spent a few weeks on an Everest trek with a large group.  After that trek, our porter had gone home to Lukla, which is a plane or bus ride away from Kathmandu.  When he got the call that he was needed for our trek, the agency could not get him a plane or bus ticket because it was high tourist season and nothing was available.  Undeterred, our porter walked (yes, walked) for three days to get to a place where he could catch a bus to Kathmandu, so that he could meet up with our sherpa for the start of our trek, so that he could carry our stuff for another five days of walking.  Keeping this in mind…

We finished lunch and continued our upward climb for about three more hours.  There were stretches here and there where we walked on flat ground, but they were few and far between.   Ken and I were still enthusiastic, but we were getting tired.  We were hoping as we rounded every bend that we would finally see Ghandruk, the village where we would stop for the night.  I have to say, though, that the experience of the trek was not diminished by our fatigue.  The air in the mountains is crisp and clean, the sun continued to shine.  Vibrantly colored wildflowers hung romantically over rooftops and flourished madly upon the quaint stone walls that lined our path through the mountains.  Eventually we stopped for a rest near two women selling oranges out of a large wicker basket.  The fresh, succulent oranges were the perfect treat and so savory and juicy we couldn’t help but have seconds.  Here I am with Little Spree taking a breather:

But even after two oranges and a half hour break, I was still absolutely spent.  I did not want to keep walking up stairs.  The path wound around a corner and we thought for a minute the upward climb was over, but no!  We hit another section of stairs and continued upward.  Finally, about the time I was pretty sure I was not going to make it any further, we entered Ghandruk.  Hooray, we were there!  Unfortunately for us, our lodge was at the highest point in the village, normally a prime location because of the view, but less than ideal when all you want to do is collapse, and so we continued walking up for a final half hour that nearly did us in.  That half hour of walking was painful both physically and mentally.  I could hardly walk by the time we actually arrived at the door of our lodge, having developed some sort of knee problem during all those hours of walking up and up and up, and Ken was in just about the same condition.  So much for the “easy” trek!  Our sherpa wanted to take us on a tour of the village once we checked in, but we declined because it involved moving off the bed.  Our porter thought it was really funny that we were so tired, so maybe we were just trekking wimps.  I didn’t care…all I wanted to do was eat and go to sleep!  Here is Ken in the room trying to keep warm:

The lodge we were staying in was typical of what we would encounter on our trek — very basic with no heat, but it did have a hot shower.  That shower in the dingy, dimly lit bathroom was probably the best I have ever taken in my life.  And although I did not feel exactly rejuvenated afterward, we did have enough energy to make it through dinner without falling asleep in our food and hit the sack at the respectable hour of 7 p.m.  We had made it through day 1, barely.

Day 2 was a little easier, since we only trekked for about 3 hours and this time through more varied terrain.  We even sometimes trekked downhill, which was nice, but inevitably meant we would have to go back up.  The terrain changed as we gained altitude and we walked through a forest of big leafy green trees that had large bendy trunks and branches that reached in odd directions.  We passed a group of white monkeys playing in the woods and as we ascended we started to get glimpses of the snow capped peaks on the horizon.  That evening at our lodge Ken and I and all the other guests huddled around the dinner table because it was FREEEEEZING.  The table was heated underneath by hot coals and had a blanket hanging around the edge to keep you warm.  It was so cozy and not at all a fire hazard.  We slept fully clothed in sleeping bags with two extra down blankets on top of us.  Actually, I really should say I slept.  Ken wasn’t feeling well and was up all night with a pounding headache.  At 3 a.m. he went outside to get some air and then woke me up to come look at the stars.  We were in the middle of nowhere and the multitude of stars lighting the night sky was astounding.  In the morning, Ken was on the fence about whether he could continue trekking, but decided that he could do it after watching the sun rise over the stunning mountain view.  This picture was taken in the morning before heading out again:

I would like to say on Day 3 things started to get easier, that we started to get into a trekking rhythm, but that would be a lie.  Every day was completely exhausting.  But then again, every day had something — some spectacular view like this…

…some small waterfall…

…some chicken hiding out under a table…

or cat basking in the sun or girl walking by in her uniform and flip flops on the way to school – that made the trek completely worthwhile.  The views of the mountains in and of themselves are reason to do a trek like this, but also the chance to see how the Nepalese live in this area is captivating.  In the lower regions of the mountains, we trekked through farming villages but at higher altitudes the locals seemed to organize their livelihood around tourism.  Small stores and restaurants were spread sporadically along the trail.  Just when you started to hear your stomach rumble and you needed a snack you would round a corner or reach a plateau and find a little store where you could buy a snickers or a small restaurant where you could sit for a hot meal and some Nepalese tea.  The food at the trail side restaurants was cheap and good, in particular the local Nepalese dish Dal Bhat which consisted of rice, vegetables, lentils and bread, and all you could eat refills of any of the above.  There were no roads where we were in the mountains, so you would often see Nepalese people walking by carrying incredibly large loads up and down the mountain — hay bales, big cages full of chickens, camping gear — and usually just wearing flip flops.  And in every village you can find a lodge to stay the night, with a hot shower, a home-cooked Nepalese meal and no heat, but a few extra blankets to keep you warm.  So I have to say that even though I was suffering a bit physically trying to get through the trek, it was incredibly rejuvenating just to experience such a different place and way of life.  Here is a picture of one of the mountains taken through our window in one of the boarding houses:

And this is how the porters generally load themselves up – our porter is on the left and clearly has it easy compared to that other guy:

On Day 4 we finally climbed to the top of Poon Hill, which was the point of highest altitude we would reach on our trek, some 3200 meters.  I personally had a rough time.  We had to wake up before 5 a.m. so that we could make the hour trek to the top of the hill to see the sun rise.  I am not a morning person and I was all layered up because it was still dark and freezing and I was carrying our little video camera in my backpack.  Sadly, halfway up I had to hand over my pack to our sherpa.  I was so out of breath he got concerned and made me sit down for a rest which was rather embarrassing considering our porter had been carrying our large heavy backpack for 4 days without a complaint and often leading the way!  Cross that one off the new career list.  But we finally made it to the top and drank hot tea and waited for the first rays of sunlight to hit the white peaks that stretched out before us.  From the top of Poon Hill you can see the entire Annapurna mountain range, and I although I can’t remember the names of all the peaks, I do remember how beautiful it was to see them turn pale pink and then white as the sun lifted over the horizon.  Sunrise on Poon Hill:

And here we are with our Sherpa and Porter – not the best pic but the only one we have:

Just after sunrise:

After our Poon Hill excursion, we headed back to our lodge for a hot breakfast and then started the long two day trek back to our starting point, back through the forest, down many jagged stairs cut into the mountainside, down through the terraced farmland.  We passed a group with an injured woman who was being carried down the mountain in a basket on the back of a Nepalese man.  I could hardly believe my eyes.  We passed by a group of mules wearing big feather headdresses, sheep being sheared in a large field, a mother hen with three of the tiniest chicks I have ever seen, and a group of baby lambs bleating and running up and down the perilous stairs.  Perilous to us, perhaps, but at one point I turned around and saw our sherpa walking down the retaining wall on the side of the path.  I guess for him this was just business as usual.  On our final morning of trekking, we finally reached flat land again and the bubbling river, which we traversed on rocks, taking the lead from two local Nepalese women carrying baskets on their heads.  We stopped for one last juicy fresh orange and then it was time to head back to Pokhara and the airport and Kathmandu and our five star hotel.  Here are a couple of shots from our last day:

Passing through a small village:

Another small village:

Crossing over a stream:

And finally, some farmers working the fields:

My thoughts on trekking in Nepal?  Go and do it!  I may not be heading back anytime soon to hit the full Annapurna Circuit, but there are many shorter treks to conquer.  Although at the end of five days I felt beaten and bruised by our short and easy trek in the Himalayas, I’ll be back.  The country is too beautiful to visit only once.

Ok, so here are the pictures for Nepal:

http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157610611772073/show/

And as an extra, this link should take you to a blown view of a picture I took.  I don’t remember why I took it but if you look in front of our porter you will see the injured woman Krysten mentioned sitting in a basket.  She is being carried all the way out by her porter because she injured her knee.  The guy carrying her probably weighs 150 pounds max and he basically kept pace with us.  These guys are pretty amazing.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/3079329668/sizes/o/in/set-72157610611772073/

There is everywhere else in the world, and then there is India.  That’s the saying at least.  I think I agree.  Showing up in India from the United States I think would be somewhat of a shock to the system to say the least.  We have had the benefit of traveling for a while in countries like China, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, etc. so I feel like some of the craziness of India didn’t feel quite as crazy as it would have had we gone straight there.

Our first stop was Delhi.  Delhi is a huge city which is seriously crowded and bustling.  Streets are packed with beat up buses, beggars, shops, food stalls, touts offering everything under the sun and cars trying to run you down (well, not really, but it feels that way).  There is so much going on it makes your head spin and your adrenaline pump.  When you get back to your hotel room at the end of the day you feel exhausted even if you’ve only been out for a few hours.  Lucky for us, we decided that instead of staying at the four or five star hotels we would go to more of a “homey” place owned by a local couple.  Turned out to be a good choice.  They had a nice roof-deck with a restaurant/bar that allowed us to escape from the madness of Delhi each night.  But best of all, we were also invited to their Diwali celebration.

Diwali, also known as the Festival of Lights, is a big holiday in India which runs for a few days but culminates on a full moon.  I think it has something to do with the celebration of the victory of good over evil.  Feel free to Wikipedia it for more info.  Anyway, being the Festival of Lights means one thing – Fireworks.  So, I expected to see a few fireworks, maybe one major display like the Macy’s display, and then a few firecrackers later on.  Not exactly.  They are really, really, really into the fireworks thing.  Every person seemingly has his own arsenal.  It started shortly after dark and continued unabated literally for hours.  It was uncoordinated which meant that you would be watching something a mile away and then something would blow up twenty yards to your right jolting the crap out of you.  It was pretty awesome and we were taking it all in from the roof-deck, eating our Indian cuisine, lighting our own sparklers and watching our host light of his own fireworks.  All in all, a pretty cool night.  Here is Krysten trying not to burn her face off:

And here I am showing off my awesome new dot on my forehead (I never asked what it meant even though I had a few of them during our stay – asking would’ve made them think I didn’t know…):

Sightseeing-wise, to me, the attraction of the city is just walking around, dodging livestock and buses, and people watching.  Unfortunately, I don’t have too many pictures of the madness because it seemed a little odd to snap pics of people on the street.  We hit up the Red Fort which was originally where the Royal Family resided but I think is better known for the Mughals who built much of it.  It’s pretty massive and well preserved.  Here is a shot of the front gate area:

And here is Krysten hanging out inside:

We also took a little time to hang out near the India Gate which is a park area that gives you a reprieve from the crowds, and checked out the Museum of Modern Art which was great but means you have to walk across a six lane road on pain of death.  Each crossing took us about twenty minutes.  It’s like playing a game of human Frogger.  It’s nuts.  This is the India Gate:

And the surrounding park where some kids are trying to play a modified form of cricket:

There are obviously many other things to see and do in Delhi but I’ll take a moment here to mention the best thing about India – the food!  I was totally freaked out about getting my proverbial ass kicked food-wise but my worries were unfounded.  Almost every meal we ate was fantastic.  I would be remiss however if I didn’t mention my new golden rule of traveling – know your exchange rates and watch those zeros.  After a day of exploring Delhi Krysten and I found ourselves at the Imperial Hotel where, as our Rough Guide put it, they have maybe “the best restaurant in Asia.”  We checked the prices and entrees were only about $10-$15 so we figured we’d try it out.  Yeah!  Only, we had to kill an hour first so we decided to get a bottle of wine.  The waiter made a suggestion to me and I did my mental calculation of the price and it looked cheap – sweet, what a coup this night was going to be!  Corollary to the aforementioned golden rule of travel – never let me make decisions.  Turns out, the wine I picked was $150 + tax and tip which left it around $180+!  (Krysten picked up on it but just thought I was in a celebratory mood.  She should know better by now!)  Unfortunately, I didn’t even like it.  I left half a glass on the table and slunk out, a beaten man.  This is me with my crappy wine (do I look like a guy that wants a $180+ bottle of wine):

Oh yeah, as for the food, it was pretty good but to claim it was the best in Asia would be a radical departure from reality.  (Nothing beats Otto’s as far as I’m concerned – a small shack on the beach in Koh Samui with $2 dishes of fried rice with chicken and pineapple as well as cheap beer!)

Ok, so after Delhi we headed to Agra to see the Taj Mahal.  We decided to take a train but unfortunately we couldn’t get on the high speed train we wanted so we had to leave at 5:30 am on something that looked like it was built before trains were invented (if you saw this thing you wouldn’t be thinking “that’s impossible” right now).  The train station itself was something of an adventure as well.  After being accosted by touts trying to sell me tickets outside (they like to tell you that the ticket office is closed inside and steer you somewhere else – they even grab on to you sometimes) and winding our way closer to the ticket counter we learned that there really isn’t an appreciation of “personal space” here.  We encountered this throughout Asia but this was another level altogether.  Our counter was on the far side of a line of people and we were perplexed about how to break through.  The people lined up by standing behind one another putting their hands on the shoulders of the people in front of them and pressing into them with their bodies.  There was literally body contact from shoulder to toe.  It’s pretty amazing – luckily, not our line because I couldn’t have done it.  We eventually found the end of the line and squeezed around the back of it to get to our destination…

The trains are an experience in and of themselves with people jamming into the non-first class cars like you wouldn’t believe.  We had sleeper bunks which gives you a decent amount of space though.  When we got on, someone on the train told us we could get a fresh bedroll from the boy working on the train.  We asked him and he grabbed a used set of old sheets and blankets off some other bunks, folded them up and handed them to us.  Sweet!  The bathroom is basically a hole in the floor that goes right onto the track.  Strangely, despite all of this, it wasn’t a bad experience overall and as a few people have told me, you haven’t traveled in India until you’ve taken the trains.  Luckily, we were only going a few hours away (so we didn’t really need the bed rolls) and we arrived in Agra no worse for wear.  Here is Krysten sitting on her bunk (top bunk to be precise):

So Agra is somewhat of a beaten up town and you really go here for one reason and one reason only – the Taj Mahal.  Part of me debated whether it was worth it to go all the way here for one day just to see a heavily touristed site like this but you can’t really go to India and not see the Taj Mahal so we bit the bullet.  Well, it was completely worth it.  As we approached we were swarmed by vendors selling every crappy souvenir you could imagine.  One guy was seriously giving me the hard sell on neckties (a seemingly odd choice).  We were happy to reach the security checkpoint to get away from them when the unthinkable happened – Racial Profiling!!!  Now, normally in India, racial profiling happens everywhere only it’s in reverse – if you’re white Americans like us, you just get waved through…  This was much more sinister and I was personally embarrassed and appalled.  I’m sure by now you’ve figured out what happened.  Yep.  Little Spree was denied entry into the Taj Mahal!!!  No – I’m not joking!  He was of course devastated and we were forced to leave him in a locker outside.  I guess they thought that since he was plastic that maybe he could be a plastic explosive or something?  I have no idea.  Anyway, we will make bad parents one day because we went in without him.  Here we are at the entrance:

So, in case you don’t know the story of the Taj Mahal, here is the condensed version:  It was built in the 1600s by an emperor during the Mughal period as a mausoleum for the emperor’s third wife who died during the birth of their fourteenth child (no wonder – fourteen!!!).  He is said to have been completely grief-stricken and spent a vast fortune to build it.  There was supposed to be another one behind this one across the river and it was to be in black but I think he ran out of money.  The emperor and his wife are both in the tomb today (the whole white building is basically the tomb).  The Taj from the entrance:

There are two mosques (I think that’s what they are) on the sides which are impressive by themselves.  Here’s part of one peeking out:

This is in the front of one of the side mosques – it has a very “walk into the light” quality, no?

The only other stop for us in Agra was the Agra Fort.  The irony of this place is that the emperor who built the Taj Mahal was later imprisoned here by his son who thought he was wasting their fortune and was unable to rule the country in his despair.  So, in an ironic twist, he was held here where he could see the Taj Mahal daily – sort of a constant reminder of what he once was.  Here is Little Spree checking out the Taj Mahal from the Agra Fort – sadly, like the emperor, as close as he would get:

And here is the front of the fort – looks an awful lot like the Red Fort in Delhi:

Ok, nothing else to report from Agra.  From here we decided to head to Jaipur in Rajasthan.  By car.  Yikes.  If you can avoid it, traveling by car is not recommended in India.  There are basically no rules, people walk right in front of the vehicle, drivers seemingly have no idea that other cars exist and livestock often wanders around in the middle of the road.  This drive was actually not too bad but we took a car in Kerala that I was pretty sure would lead to somebody’s death – hopefully not ours.  Anyway, it’s something that is indescribable so I’ll stop trying to describe it.

We decided again to forego the chain hotels and, this time, to skip the city itself and stay at a ‘retreat’ outside of Jaipur for a few days.  It was an eco-friendly B&B type place basically in the middle of a rural farming area.  It was a great pick.  The owners are retired consultants from Mumbai (here’s to hoping all is well there) who opened this place on the ancestral lands of the husband’s family.  We spent a fair amount of time sitting, eating and talking about India, America, politics, etc. with them and it was a great experience.  In fact, we stayed for four days and never bothered to go into Jaipur.  We were kind of ‘citied-out’ anyway.  We also hired a guy to take us through the local villages on the back of his camel-cart (basically a wagon tied to the back of a camel).  As we went through the villages we took a ridiculous number of pictures because as soon as they saw the camera the people all wanted their pictures taken.  A few times we were swarmed.  Nobody out there speaks any English (including our camel dude) so not a lot of conversation took place – only charades.  Well, there was one guy who spoke a little English but I hope he didn’t understand too much because I think I invited him to stay with us here…  Here are some of my favorite shots:

Lady from the first village who was working the fields:

Young guy in the foreground at a farm – I like this one because you can see the prior generation behind him and almost see the old guy as the young guy in thirty years:

Old lady and her son:

Krysten being mobbed for pictures:

One of the village elders (not sure what to call him but it seemed that he sort of ran the place):

And finally, a lady with her baby – I like how everyone else came out blurry in this one:

There are tons more in the slideshow from this day so feel free to check ‘em out.

So, that’s basically the “Golden Triangle” of India and it’s the part almost every visitor will have on his or her itinerary (with good reason).  Next stop for us was Goa for a little beach time.  We flew down to save time and to avoid train travel (we’re getting whimpy lately) and booked a few days at the Leela Hotel which is similar to a Four Seasons but without the price tag.  (Actually, I think it was somehow related to the Four Seasons at some point.)  I don’t have a lot to report from here other than we ate a lot and it was good.  Here I am by the pool which is where I spent most of my time:

After Goa we headed down to Kerala on the advice of my friend Chandan (in fact, many of the things we did were based on his advice so if you’re reading this – thanks again and the first round is on me).  Kerala would prove to be our favorite stop in India.  It’s more laid back than the other areas we were in and it’s simply a beautiful place.

First stop was in Thiruvananthapuram (try saying that ten times fast – or even once slowly) which is where the airport is.  We didn’t actually stay there or see the city.  I just wanted to throw that name out there…  We actually stayed in Kovalam which is another beachy area.  We intended to do some sightseeing but I had a lingering headcold so we stuck close to the hotel (and the pool).  Boring to read about but perfect to do.  From there we booked a backwater cruise on a houseboat in Kollam which is a couple of hours North.  We covered this distance by car which was one of the most harrowing rides of my life.  I tried in vain not to look but it’s impossible.  I’d give you anecdotes about the ride but they wouldn’t do it justice.  Anyway, by the grace of god, we arrived without incident and hoped on our boat.

The Kerala houseboat tours are on most people’s itineraries when visiting Kerala.  There is basically a vast network of rivers and lakes in the area and you can rent a private houseboat to take you throough and visit villages etc.  You get a crew to drive the boat and a cook to make the meals and even an air-conditioned cabin for sleeping.  Some people go for a few nights but we decided to do a one nighter instead because we wanted to have a few days in Cochin before heading to Nepal.  This is a picture of what the boat looks like – it’s somebody else’s boat but looks similar to ours:

Anyway, we started out on a lake and watched the local fisherman get their daily catch.  There are numerous chinese fishing nets which use a system of counterbalances to drop the net down and get it back up – more on this later.  This is what the Chinese fishing net looks like:

There are also old school fisherman that drop nets by hand and pull them in the same way as you can see here:

Next we hopped onto a canoe and went into one of the villages.  The villages basically developed around the many systems of canals which you can cruise through.  The scenery is amazing.  The canals are quiet and there wasn’t a ripple in the water which made it look like glass. Here is a shot:

The canoe we were in was pushed with a pole by a kid probably in his teens.  He said he had never left his village before which, when you see how small it is, is pretty hard to fathom coming from where we do.  People do their laundry and bathe in the canals and you feel as though you’ve been transported to another time.  Laying out the nets:

And here is the local market:

After that we tied up for the night and spent the night on the boat.  Krysten slept fine.  I had a hard time sleping because I could hear a rat or something between the walls and it was constantly chewing on something or scurrying around.  Ugh!

The next day we headed up to Cochin (again by car – we never learn) to spend our last few days in India.  Cochin is an old fishing village, covered in Chinese fishing nets, and is famous for Kathakali, which is a form of classical Indian theater. We spent the first couple of days exploring the town, checking out the cafes and the sights.  It’s relatively low key.  There is a Dutch museum, lots of shops, vendors selling the day’s catch and stalls to cook it up for you.  There used to be a sizeable Jewish community but not anymore.  However, there is still a Jewish synagogue there in “Jew Town” as they call it built in the 1500s as well as St. Francis Church built in 1503, which is the oldest European church in India.  Here are some guys working the nets – the guys walk around to swing the balance far enough to pick up or drop the nets (you can see the counterbalances hanging near the top right of the photo):

As for the Kathakali, we decided to go to a theater attached to a school where students learn Kathakali (believe it or not it is a six year program) and the graduates put on a performance.  It lasts about an hour but the full performances can go all night.  That’s probably a bit much for me…  Here are the actors putting on their makeup:

(Editorial note:  I have about thirty pictures of them getting ready so be forewarned when you hit the slideshow and get your finger on the fast forward button.)  The characters wear heavy makeup and costumes and perform a sort of dance with lots of detailed gestures.  Each gesture has a distinct meaning which tells a story.  They did a demonstration beforehand to show how it works but it would be impossible to decipher without having the story in front of you, which we did.  Good show.  Here is a bad picture (flash prohibited) during the show:

So, that about wraps up India.  All in all, a great stop.  There are things that deter people from going (like not being able to drink the water, tales of Delhi-belly, crowds, and it’s generally the country that safety forgot – people crowd and push you around, they ride on top of trains or hanging out the doorways, they cross streets without looking etc.) but in my opinion the goods definitely outweigh the bads.  (Although, one thing they have to stop doing over there is re-using straws.  They bring out a glass with a bunch of unwrapped straws in it and if you look closely you can sometimes see droplets of soda still sitting in there.  Nasty!)  Anyway, here are the pics from:

Delhi:  http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157610333124355/show/

Agra:  http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157610253373827/show/

Rajashtan:  http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157610132812474/show/

Goa:  http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157610679275422/show/

Kovallam:  http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157610679319068/show/

Kollam:  http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157610411839593/show/

Cochin:  http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157610665358482/show/

Next up, Nepal!

Ciao

We left beautiful relaxing Santorini and headed to Cairo.  Although only a two hour flight from Athens, Cairo is a world away from Europe in atmosphere and culture.  The city is vibrant, crowded, dusty, full of traffic and mosques, and simultaneously modern and ancient.  Of course our first order of business upon arrival was to visit the last remaining ancient wonder of the world, the Pyramids of Giza.

The Giza Pyramids are literally right on the outskirts of Cairo.  As we drove down traffic snarled Pyramids Road, I was surprised when I glanced out the window and saw a majestic pyramid rising above the rooftops of the surrounding apartment buildings.   The urban sprawl stretches right up to the concrete wall and barbed wire fence that marks the beginning of the Pyramids Zone, where building is prohibited.  This initial peek really did not prepare me for the sight that awaited us once we entered the actual Pyramids Zone.  I was riding a camel, Ken was on horseback and we rode into an area of desert and up a sand dune.  This is apparently the back entrance to the area, and it felt like we were the only ones visiting the Pyramids that day.  As we rode up the dunes and looked over to our right, there sat the amazing Pyramids of Giza, silhouetted against the sky and the desert sand as Cairo stretched out behind them in the distance.  It was truly a sight to behold and something I never expected to experience in my lifetime. Here is a partial shot of two of the Pyramids with a couple of cars to give you an idea of their size:

And here we are sitting on the base of the largest Pyramid which shows how big each stone is:

A picture of the second largest pyramid behind some smaller structures:

And finally, the Sphinx:

Needless to say the Pyramids are huge, huge structures and I really cannot comprehend how they were built without the aid of modern technology.  There are three main pyramids, which were the tombs of pharaohs, and several smaller pyramids that served as tombs for the pharaohs’ wives, known as the “queen’s” pyramids.  We walked into the interior of one of the smaller tombs, down a narrow stuffy claustrophobic tunnel into the small stone room at the heart of the structure.  Here is Ken inside the tomb room of the small Pyramid:

I have to say that our guide really did manage to give us an entertaining tour.  As I mentioned, we did not go in to the area through the main entrance and as a result we approached the Pyramids from a less crowded and more scenic vantage point.  Once we arrived in the main area, where we trotted past cars and tour buses, he took us into sections of the Pyramids area that are actually off limits, and as a result kept getting into loud arguments with various government officials who would ride over to try to chase us away…they were always persuaded by a few egyptian pounds to let us stay.  Here is one of the many policeman looking off into the sunset after getting his pound of flesh:

Our guide also got a big kick out of getting us to take completely silly pictures, such as this one of me kissing the Sphinx.

And this one touching the top of the Pyramids:

All in all, the tour to the Pyramids was definitely the highlight of our time in Cairo and in Egypt, although we did also take a day to explore the city.  We walked through the Khan el-Khalili market, which has been in existence since the 1300’s.  As we started walking through the market, I thought it was very touristy, but as we slowly made our way deeper into the market the narrow alleys gradually became more and more crowded with locals shopping and carrying large packages.  The market sells pretty much anything and everything, spices, clothing, scarves, egyptian statues, party hats, stuffed animals, food, tea…you name it.  As we walked amongst throngs of people and men pulling carts packed high with goods, hissing to warn you to allow them passage, it felt like we had stepped back in time to the market of centuries earlier.  Here is a not-so-glamorous shot of the market:

We also visited the Egyptian museum, which is really big and full of a mind boggling array of ancient artifacts and statues.  The Tutankhamen exhibit is particularly interesting.  Cairo is also home to something called the City of the Dead, which basically is a large inhabited cemetery.  People who cannot afford homes live in the above-ground tombs and structures of the cemetery, a result of a lack of affordable housing in the area.  Our driver pointed these out to us on our way back to our hotel, although we do not have a picture.

And of course, no trip to Egypt would be complete without taking some time to view the Nile.  Here I am with Little Spree overlooking the Nile winding its way through the city of Cairo.

After Cairo, it was time for a few days of R&R in the city of Dahab on the Sinai Penninsula.  The topography here is absolutely stunning, mud colored mountains rising behind a beach of red stone.  The red sea is cool and refreshing and so salty you can float and float without a paddle.   Unfortunately because I had a major head cold, we could not partake in the great scuba diving available in the area.  Here is Ken at a seaside bar:

Now despite the grandeur of the Pyramids and the beauty of the beaches, Egypt can, at times, be a trying travel destination.  For example, you have to bargain for everything and tip everyone, which is not in and of itself a problem, except that it is nearly impossible to get change anywhere.  There is an actual shortage of small bills in the country.  Also, it is generally accepted and I suppose expected that whomever you tip will ask you for more money.  You do get a sense that tourists are viewed as a kind of ATM.  In fact as we rode back through the village after our tour of the Pyramids, a bunch of school kids saw us and started chanting “Money, Money, Money!”.   Our cab driver took the 50 pound note we gave him and switched it under the dashboard for a 1 pound note and then claimed we did not pay him the right amount (Ken saw him switch the money).  When we told him we saw what he had done, he said “but the ride was very far…”  But hey, I guess these are just some of the hazards of travel and minor annoyances when you think of all the history, beauty and culture Egypt has to offer.

So here is the slideshow for Egypt:  http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157608370034120/show/

Next up…India!

Greece… This will be a short one I think. We weren’t there for long – it was sort of a throw in since it was so close to Egypt and we had to stop in Athens on the flight anyway. We started off in Athens where we only had a couple of days and two items on the agenda. Item number one was, of course, the Acropolis!  This is the Acropolis from the base (it’s much higher than it looks in this picture):

The Acropolis was basically the center of religious life in ancient Greece. It sits impressively on top of a large hill and towers over the city of Athens. Much of it is in ruins of course but they are in good enough shape to give you the flavor of their former grandeur. On the way up to the top of the hill you pass by what was once an amphitheater and see a bunch of ruins but the main event here is the Parthenon.  Here is the old amphitheater:

And here is Little Spree in front of said Parthenon:

The Parthenon was originally built as a temple but over time functioned as a treasury, a Christian church, a Mosque and an ammunition storage depot. It was then that it was blown to crap when the Venetians bombarded it in the late 1600s and the munitions exploded leaving it in its current condition. Since it was only a few hundred years ago that it was blown up, there is some debate as to whether it should be rebuilt or not. There is currently a renovation in progress as you can see in some of the pics but it isn’t a complete rebuild. Here is the back side of the building:

Also on top is the Erechtheum:

I’m going on memory here so don’t blast me but I think this is supposed to be the site where Poseidon and Athena had their contest over the city (which Athena of course won, hence the name Athens). Greek mythology buffs should feel free to correct me. I’m too lazy to look it up. Here is part of the Erechtheum called the Porch of Maidens – each one being different from the others. I read somewhere that the necks were the tricky part because they need to support the weight of the roof:

So, that’s basically the Acropolis. The second item on our list for Athens was, wait for it, wait for it, laundry! Normally, laundry would not be blog-worthy but I thought I’d mention that at the laundromat Krysten managed to gracefully miss a step and fell flat on her butt leaving a bruise the size of a softball. OUCH! I’d post a pic but it was in a decidely non-picture taking zone…

Anyway, not much else to report on Athens other than that the food was fantastic (I never thought much about Greek food until then but it’s pretty damn good). So, in accordance with our normal pattern for this trip, we ate way too much… Here is a final shot from Athens taken from our hotel room which was across the street from the remains of the Temple of Zeus:

The only other place we hit in Greece was Santorini, which is sort of a laid back place to wither away a couple of days. We stayed at a small hotel which was perched atop the mountainside and we had the suite on the top of the hotel with a roof-deck. Unfortunately, the place was seriously windy so with the exception of one day it was almost unbearable to sit out there. It is, however, a beautiful place. Here is a view from our deck:

And a pic of Krysten in a restaurant:

There is nothing to report here other than we sat around, ate, sat around some more, ate some more, and basically recuperated from our time in Spain and Portugal which definitely left us in need of recuperation. So, short as this blog may be, that’s about it. Here are the pics from:

Athens:  http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157608356184420/show/

Santorini:  http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157608356482920/show/

Next up, Egypt.

Ciao

This is what you need to know about Portugal….Lisbon is the new Prague, Portugal is on sale and it’s raining men!

Let me explain.

Elena, Alex, Ken and I decided to take a few days and road-trip it into Portugal since it’s so close to Spain and also because someone on tripadvisor.com (normally a fail-safe resource), waxed poetic of the amazingly scenic drive through Salamanca in Spain and then south through Portugal on N234 to Lisbon, likening the scenery to Tuscany. We were just in Tuscany and, damn, if a drive though northern Portugal could live up to that, then it would definitely be worth the trip. We headed out from Madrid in high spirits, planning an overnight in the little town of Salamanca, and then a breathtaking drive down to Lisbon.

First stop, Salamanca. Salamanca is a very beautiful little college town in northern Spain. We made it there without too much trouble courtesy of La Tonta, the nickname given to GPS in Spain meaning the Dummy. Our only real almost setback occurred when La Tonta instructed Ken to turn the wrong way down a one-way street as we entered the city. Alex, Elena and I all screamed! We yelled at Ken to turn around! Couldn’t he see he was going the wrong way?!? You can’t listen to everything La Tonta says! It turns out La Tonta was right, we were not going the wrong way, and Ken was ready to dump everyone except La Tonta on the side of the road. Thus are the hazards of agreeing to be the driver.

As I mentioned, Salamanca is a college town, so we expected to find some activity upon our arrival, like maybe a variety of cozy restaurants, some bars, live music…but what we encountered was another story altogether. No one was in Salamanca. The main square, the restaurants, the streets were all deserted. I felt like we were in that Travelocity commercial, “Where is everybody???”. We finally found a restaurant that was not completely empty, ate a quick dinner and headed in for the night. Hmphfh. No worries. We would be rested and ready for our beautiful drive the next day.  Here is the main square at night (may be a little blurry because the camera was handheld but it’s the best we have):

The next morning in the light of day I think we all developed more of an appreciation for Salamanca. It is full of old stone buildings and winding streets and has a beautiful central cathedral, all very picturesque. Here is a picture of one of the two major cathedrals (New Cathedral) in the area (it’s too big to get the whole thing because it’s tucked in to city streets):


And here is Old Cathedral (again, in part):

After a nice stroll around, we hopped in the car and were on our way to Portugal, woo hoo! Unfortunately, for some reason La Tonta was not cooperating. She did not want us to take N234 to Lisbon because it was not the shortest route, the most direct or the quickest. What does La Tonta know? We stopped at a gas station, bought a map and headed on our way.

The drive from Salamanca through the remainder of Spain was beautiful, farmland stretching as far as the eye could see. We passed the border into Portugal and the scenery became more mountainous and rocky, natural and wild. So far so good. And then we turned onto N234. Mistake! N234 is about as scenic as the New Jersey Turnpike. Actually, I think the Turnpike might have a thing or two on N234. The only scene outside the car window was factory upon factory with smokestacks pouring soot into the air. Unfortunately we were still three or four hours from Lisbon and the scenery did not improve at all along the way. We started a game of who could spot a scenic spot…a game without winners. To make matters worse, as we approached Lisbon, La Tonta, who apparently was bent out of shape that we had not followed her earlier advice, refused to direct us to our desired location. When we finally arrived at our hotel after some frantic searching on google maps with Elena’s blackberry, a failed attempt at getting directions from a gas station attendant and finally a call to the hotel, we were not in the best of spirits. To top it off, our hotel, which was a bit outside the city, informed us that, contrary to reports on tripadvisor, it did not run a shuttle into the city and we could either take a cab or pay 27 euros (approx $40) each way for a transfer. At this point I was seriously wondering whether this road trip would be a complete bust.

Despite our sunken spirits, we rallied, largely at the behest of Alexandra and Little Spree, and decided to head into the city for dinner. We called a cab and were pleasantly surprised when it dropped us off in the city center only 12 euros later, in an area, recommended by a friend of Alex’s, full of little restaurants and bars, and people! Our night was looking up! We sat down and had a really delicious dinner. We wandered down the hilly cobblestoned streets, into a bar, and ordered a beer… and like a lightbulb, it hit us, our first revelation of the evening as succinctly put by Alex…Portugal is on sale!!! I mean the cab ride had seemed remarkably well-priced and the dinner astoundingly reasonable, but the beer, the beer is just flat out cheap. Little Spree tried out our theory on a mohito, and yes, it too was cheap…here he is enjoying his drink:

And here Elena and Spree celebrate our newfound love of Lisbon (or of each other):

From then on the night only got better. We found ourselves in a bar with a band. The band was good. We started to dance, even though the rest of the bar was just standing around. Slowly but surely, other people started to dance. Before long, the entire bar was dancing and singing along at the top of their lungs. Alexandra demanded a shot. We asked for a lemon drop but the bartender did not know how to make it. Instead, he served up his own concoction, something with kahlua in it, poured it and set it on fire. Alexandra, who before our visit had never done a flaming shot, was about to partake in her second one in a week. And you know it’s going to be an eventful night when flaming shots are served spontaneously!

Suddenly Ken started making friends. First was this French guy in the striped shirt.

Then a group of local Lisbonites. Ken says when you are one guy traveling with three girls, making friends is easy. It goes something like this, “Hi, where are you from?” “Who are you traveling with?, “Oh those three girls…are any of them single?” “Which ones?”… And so just like that, we had made friends with the locals. Here they are with Alexandra.

If I have learned anything on our travels, it is that having a local guide is key to discovering the true character of the place you are visiting, and once again it proved to be true. Just like Mr. Lee showed us the true Chengdu countryside and Kelvin showed us authentic Laos, this group of Lisbon locals proved invaluable in giving us a taste of true after-hours Lisbon. When the bar closed at a shockingly early hour (shockingly early because it was not yet dawn), they took us down the street and around the corner, and “Voila!”, a club in full swing! The place was packed. Then, the band from the previous bar showed up. The cheap beer was flowing and I think Ken in his merriment invited all the Portugese boys to come stay at our house in NJ. We danced and danced. My toes went numb. As in Spain, we left the club in the early morning and the party was still going strong. We made it back to our hotel just as the breakfast buffet opened.

Here is Alex with Little Spree at breakfast (I think he pulled the “Switcheroo” on Elena and Alex):

Needless to say, the next day as we relaxed poolside over brunch, we had a completely different view of Lisbon and our road trip than we had when we arrived the night before. Who cares about the disaster of N234, when we had discovered the beauty of Lisbon…an incredible city with delicious food, cheap drinks and a fantastic nightlife. In fact, it was exactly what we had expected of Prague, only to be disappointed upon arrival by a overpriced, overtouristed city. Skip Prague and go to Lisbon! Lisbon is the new Prague, and for you single ladies out there, it is also full of cute, friendly single men…I have it on good authority.

Here is Ken posing on the bridge over the pool at breakfast:

Of course, Lisbon has a lot more going on than just the exciting nightlife. It is a very beautiful city with old architecture and castles, and is especially stunning at night. Alex’s friend and colleague Manuel was kind enough to take us to a couple of his favorite local haunts. We had a fantastic dinner in a restaurant and wine bar housed within an ancient aqueduct. Now that is ambience! Manuel also brought us to a speakeasy, at least it felt like one…it’s a bar with very eclectic décor and themed rooms. You have to ring a buzzer to get in and the windows are covered with lace curtains so you cannot see the interior from the street. Here is Little Spree in a room filled with military themed dolls. Spree felt right at home here among his people.

We also found the time to explore nearby Sintra, where we wandered around the former summer estate of the royals…beautiful grounds, a castle, many stone structures with turrets and lookout points, a huge old stone well with a spiral staircase all the way to the bottom, and full of hidden underground passageways. We also climbed an ancient fort built by the Moors and explored the former Royal Palace.  Here is a picture from the fort:


And this is Pena Castle (very Disney-like):

And this is me in the well:


All in all, when it was finally time to head back to Spain, Portugal had completely won us over. This time we took the direct route home to Madrid, and the scenery was beautiful.

Here are the slide shows for:

Salamanca:  http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157608367557226/show/

Portugal:  http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157608229891171/show/

Next up, Greece.  It’s already written so it should be up by tomorrow afternoon – there isn’t much to it actually.  Mostly sitting around in Santorini.

Ciao

After almost two months in Italy I can honestly say I have never eaten so well and so much in one extended period in my life, and as a result I was feeling gluttonous. As we headed to Spain, it was a nice thought that we would not be eating pasta at every meal and overindulging on parmigiana and mozzarella at every turn. In addition to the change in cuisine, we were looking forward to some quality time with our friends Alexandra and Elena. You may remember Alexandra from the first Italy blog, but if not, here is a picture:

Alexandra is currently living in Madrid and was the impetus behind our trip to Spain, and after the nine-hour boozy lunch she inspired with her visit to Rome, I could only imagine what kind of trouble we might get into in Madrid, her temporary home turf.
And here is a picture of our friend Elena, who joined our Spanish odyssey from the shores of Philadelphia.

Our first stop was Barcelona, where we rented an apartment in the Eixample district, which is right in the middle of somewhere in the main area near everything. Because I prefer to leave navigation to others, and Ken acted as our trusty sherpa, that’s about as specific as I can get regarding location, but I can say that the apartment was a great find and totally cheaper than a hotel. Apartment living is the way to go when you are on a long haul trip like this one. Thanks Elena for finding it! Here is Ken sitting in the apartment:


We arrived and headed right over to our corner bistro (which maybe is called something else in Spanish), where we wasted no time ordering up some tasty beer and tapas. Properly satiated, we decided to do some shopping for a few necessary items for the apartment, one of which was soap. Problem. No one knew how to say soap in Spanish, and it turns out there is actually a large population of Spaniards who expect you to speak Spanish in Spain, go figure! Elena, who took a few semesters of Spanish in college, gave it a go and asked for sopa. We were promptly directed to the soup. Luckily, Elena has internet access on her blackberry, and we eventually looked up the correct word and were pointed in the right direction, vowing to buy a Spanish-English dictionary at the first chance we got.  This is a random bridge that people seemed excited to find:

After settling in, we set out to hit some of the sights. Barcelona is full of architectural wonders conceived and implemented by Antonin Gaudi, a visionary of the early 1900s. His crowning achievement, the Sagrada Familia, a Cathedral, is actually still being constructed in accordance with the plans he left when he died. There was quite a bit of construction going on when we visited, so it was difficult to get a true sense of the interior but here is a picture of the impressive facade:


It’s hard to see but there is basically a gigantic nativity scene on the facade – here is a closeup:

My personal favorite Gaudi site is the Park Guell. Here Gaudi designed a park and several structures within that are absolutely Seussian in nature. For example, it has this hallway where everything is structured on a tilt:

And this room of columns of different sizes. It’s like a funhouse for adults:


Finally, here is a picture of a gekko or lizard or something make from broken ceramic pieces – it’s somewhat famous and you see pictures of it all over Barcelona:

Barcelona also has a Picasso museum that focuses on Picasso’s early years. It is very interesting to see the artist’s evolution. His early works are not the Picasso we know and love, or love to hate. Highly recommended.

Perhaps most importantly, Barcelona has tremendous shopping! Elena and I spent an entire day perusing the many small boutiques lining the streets of the Barrio Gotic, and though I tried to show restraint, there were at least a few irresistible finds. Elena, being employed, was a bit more free with the mastercard, and in fact I think due in no small part to her effort, Spanish retail sales will not decline in the fourth quarter ‘08.  here is a picture of a random street in the area:

After a few days of culture, sightseeing and shopping in Barcelona, it was time to fly to Madrid, where we would be meeting up with not only Alexandra, but also Shakira (you may remember her from the Paris and Lille blogs) and her husband Alfonso:

And their friend Miguel shown here signing something in Spanish at a club:

Upon arrival in Madrid we headed straight for Alexandra’s apartment, and it convinced me that I need to live in Europe on an expat package. The apartment is three bedrooms and huge by New York standards and in an area that is the equivalent of Fifth Avenue, a nice leafy tree lined street within walking distance to Madrid’s Central Park. Madrid is a beautiful city with a park seemingly around every corner. Ahhh. On our first day in Madrid, after a brief walking tour of the city, Alex introduced us to what would become our favorite Spanish dish, over-easy eggs served on top of french fries. I know, I was skeptical at first too, but now that I am thinking about it, it is so obviously great! How many times have I ordered french fries with my eggs? (the answer, many) This dish just puts it all together. Brilliant.  Here is a picture of one of Madrid’s many parks:

That evening the four of us, me, Ken, Elena and Alex, headed out for a night on the town Spanish style. In Barcelona, I regret to say, we really did not get into the nightlife swing, but in Madrid we were to have the full on Spanish experience, courtesy of Shakira and Alfonso, who recommended we meet for dinner at one of their favorite local restaurants. We sat down to dinner at a little before 11 p.m. at a Galician tapas place with Shakira, Alfonso and their friend Miguel. Galicia is an area of Spain that has a reputation for being very mystical and is rumored to be home to witches. I have no idea whether that’s what makes the food so damn good, but this place served up an amazing selection of mouth-watering tapas. Alfonso did the honors of ordering us a variety of savory dishes, my favorite being the polpo (grilled octopus) which was so delicious that even Ken devoured it. Also on the menu was Spanish white wine, which we drank out of a small bowl instead of a wine glass. What this bowl is called in Spanish set off a fierce debate amongst the Spanish speakers at the table…who knew the word “bowl” could set off such controversy!  Here we are with Shakira and Alfonso at dinner:

The delicious dinner was only surpassed by the fantastic time being had by all at the table, despite the language barrier. Miguel and Alfonso are Spanish speakers and Ken, Elena and I English speakers, leaving only Shakira and Alexandra able to understand and speak to everyone at the table. Honestly, what did it matter when we were all speaking the universal language of eating, drinking and general merriment.

In fact, with all those bowls of wine (and there were many), we were a very merry group. Alfonso, who had done the honors of ordering all the food for us, decided that an after dinner drink was in order. Suddenly, the lights were dimmed and a steaming cauldron was brought to the front of the restaurant. The concoction was slowly stirred as a strange sounding Irish Jig (ok, that’s what it sounded like to me) played, and then a sort sort of spell or chant broke out. Finally, the waitress brought the thing over to our table, poured it into glasses and set it on fire. It was our drink and our first flaming shot of the trip. Yes, I love Spain!  Here is our flaming shot:

And here we are looking very happy after our flaming shot:

After dinner, it was time for some good old fashioned fun…dancing! Here I will let the pictures do most of the talking, but to give you an idea of the revelry, the dance floor was packed, the music loud, and at some point someone in our party was asked “Are you a dirty girl?”. Ok, it was Elena and we all know what her answer was… We left as dawn broke over the skies of Madrid and the party was still going strong. Viva Madrid! Here are a bunch of us on the dance floor:


Here are me, Elena and Alexandra:


And here are Ken and Alfonso playing air guitar:

(Note from Ken:  I was personally humbled when we left after 6 a.m. and the club was still hopping – I’ve met my partying match.  Woe is me…)

Our trip to Spain would not have been complete without seeing a flamenco performance, so a couple of nights later we headed to a venue in Madrid listed in “A Thousand Places to See Before You Die.” It was my first time seeing flamenco live on stage, and I was floored by the talent of the dancers and the haunting melodies of the singers. The setting was a very intimate dinner theater, and we were just a few feet away from the small stage. As each dancer performed in turn, the complex rhythm of the footwork, the syncopation and the intense commitment of each gesture, movement and facial expression had the audience on the edge of their seats. The performance definitely was a highlight of our trip to Spain.  No cameras allowed however so we have no pictures…

All in all, I have to say that I am personally more partial to Madrid than Barcelona, but then again, the best times are always those shared with a group of friends over bowls of wine and flaming shots…so how could Barcelona really compare? Thanks Alex for putting us up in your pad and thanks to Shakira and Alfonso for our night out!

Ok, so here are the pics for:

Barcelona:  http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157608329481490/show/

Madrid:  http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157608367430884/show/

Unfortunately, we didn’t really take many pictures in Madrid because most of what we did wasn’t of the sightseeing type stuff so be prepared for lots of pictures from the club.

Next up: our Portugal road trip!

Okay, here it is, our final Italy blog entry.  It actually encompasses three stops that don’t really have enough separately for three blog entries.  First up, Bologna.

So we didn’t know what to think about Bologna before we got there. None of us had researched it and all we knew was that it is the center of the universe for Spaghetti Bolognese and Porticoes. That’s a party I’m not gonna miss!

We arrived midday and it seemed like, well, the town was closed or something. We were starving so we walked around but we had a lot of difficulty finding something to eat which, in Italy, is unheard of! Eventually we settled down at a decent looking cafe and ordered up three plates of spaghetti bolognese because that’s what you do in Bologna. It was pretty good but at the end of the day it’s freaking spaghetti bolognese – how much can you do with it?!?  Since I don’t have a picture of spaghetti bolognese and I like to stick pictures in after most paragraphs, instead I present to you a picture of a lactating mermaid which is part of a statue in the main square (no, I have no idea why it is there):

Anyway, we wandered around a little bit and eventually headed back to the hotel to get onto the computer and figure out what we were doing in Bologna. Thus far, not we were not impressed.

Later that night we regrouped for dinner and Krysten and Owen had done a little research and decided that we would head over to the University area (Bologna is a bit of a college town). It was there that our fortunes changed. We found scores of restaurants and bars and lots of nightlife. People were out and about and Bologna was alive!

We found ourselves a little pizza/pasta joint and later hit an Irish pub for a few pints of Guinness. I know, not very Italian but when you’re traveling for a while you learn to appreciate these little tastes of home. After a few pints, Krysten and I proclaimed that we were moving to Bologna (as we do with every city we visit) and all was well again in the world. I think at some point during the night Owen assured us that he would get us a TV deal based on our current travels so long as we were willing to keep it going. Not sure how that’s working out though – I haven’t received any calls…  Here we are enjoying a pint of Guinness:

As I mentioned before, Bologna is a city of Porticos. They are everywhere. I don’t think anyone has gotten wet during a rainstorm in fifty years. But, they aren’t one trick ponies – they’re pretty cool looking as well. I think we should redo New York in this style! Here are a couple shots of the porticoes:

This one is inside a courtyard of a library:

We took in some sights in Bologna as well but there is no major attraction like the Uffizi, the Vatican etc. It’s more of a “Hey, this is a pretty cool city” kind of thing.  That being said, there are a few things worth mentioning since I took the time to take pictures (who loves ya baby?).  This is Bologna’s version of the Leaning Tower of Pisa only here there are two towers – and more is always better (yes, they are really leaning – it’s not an optical illusion):

Finally, this is church in the main square which was being built to be bigger than St. Peters. The Pope was apparently appalled and put the kaybash on it before it was done thus sparking the first ever “does size matter” debate.  The church was never completed.  Neither was the debate:

All-in-all, it’s a pretty laid back city and it has that college-town feel that you would expect. It’s not as touristy as many of the other cities in Italy which is a big plus. There are plenty of cheap (for Italy) watering holes to visit (and visit them we did!) and some low key attractions so if you’re in the area it’s worth a stopover. If we were going to move to Italy, this would be a contender.

So, after Bologna, we headed up to Parma for a couple of days (on the advice of another friend Owen and I worked with who was also liberated from the golden handcuffs – well done Chamberlain). When we arrived at our hotel in Parma we went to our rooms to drop off our stuff and were greeted with two story mansions. I thought there was a mistake until my phone rang and it was Owen who said in an incredulous voice “Does your room look like mine?” Even though I hadn’t seen his room, I said, “Uh, yep.” Two full bathrooms, three showers, an upstairs and downstairs with a living room and enough space to have a small party (well, two parties since we had two rooms). Of course, the rooms were a little dated so it wasn’t like staying in the four seasons but it was a pleasant surprise for Europe where rooms are generally tiny. (The next day we were booted out to rooms more becoming our social status…)  It was also situated next to a great park – a miniature Central Park if you will.  As we walked through to the main town there were locals relaxing and milling about, old men discussing who-knows-what on park benches and basically lots of peace and quiet.  Sweet.  Here is a pic of the main path through the park:

Parma is famous for Parmigiana cheese and Parma Ham. I kind of figured that it would be one of those things that was over-hyped and expected to be disappointed. Our first night we arrived at a strange time of day so everything was closed (much like in Bologna) but a lady in a bar which wasn’t open yet agreed to make us a plate of ham and cheese. I can say without reservation that it’s excellent. I don’t know why it’s better over here but it is. I knew immediately I was about to gain a couple more pounds but I figured I’d lose it easily in India as soon as I picked up some Delhi-belly so I pigged out. In fact, I don’t think a day went by in Parma without Parma ham and Parmigiana cheese being had by all – often at more than one meal in the same day (including breakfast). Sad, I know…  Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures of Parma ham so here is a random building (and complete non-sequitur):

What is there to see in Parma? Meh… Not too much. I imagine if you were on a two week vacation in Italy you could pack a few things into a couple of days here but we’ve seen so many sights and spent so long in Italy that we’re focused on the main attractions only now and there aren’t too many. There is the obligatory cathedral shown here:

And a town square:

And a museum – which had a great Correggio exhibit that we spent nineteen hours reviewing:

Actually, truth be told, the Correggio exhibit was so long that I couldn’t listen to the audio tour guide to the last painting. Only one more to finish the whole thing and I didn’t have the fortitude. Oh well. I’m a quitter. What can I say…

Anyway, the real charm of Parma is just being in a small town in Italy as opposed to seeing major attractions. So after a couple of days we decided to move on. Unfortunately, we had to part ways with Owen at this point because he had scorching case of herpes that needed attending to.

No, not really. Owen had not been to Venice before and we have so given the expense we decided to head to the Lake District and Owen took off for Venice. We had a farewell dinner which was notable for two reasons. First, they brought over our wine and poured it into a fancy decanter but then they never poured it for tasting so we basically sat for quite some time arguing whether we should pour it ourselves or if it was supposed to be decanting. (We wouldn’t want to commit a faux pas – not three sophisticates like us!!!) After a huge debate in which Krysten and Owen wanted to wait until the waiter did something (which was more tension than I could bear), I decided to break the tension and drink up. This is me pouring the wine – notice the poise and grace and in particular where I have placed my hands:

And here is Owen pouring – notice the lack of poise and grace and in particular where he has incorrectly placed his hands:

Needless to say, he spilled it and then blamed it on “that fly that was buzzing my hand and made me lose control.” Judges?

Okay, so we were on our way to Lake Como. For those that don’t know, Lake Como is part of the Lake District in Northern Italy. We stayed in a relatively small town that I wouldn’t recommend so it will remain nameless here. Our first night we realized that we were the only people in town under the age of seventy, our hotel was full of tour groups, nobody speaks Italian in Lake Como because it is overrun by American octogenarians and our hotel room was cold and had a constant humidity level of about 98% (everything in the room felt wet after about an hour and the heat in the hotel was not working yet). Awesome!  Here is a general shot of the mountainside behind our hotel area – you can see another building on the side of the mountain there.  Much of the scenery looks like this above the towns:

In any event, I think the two highlights of Como were Bellagio and Varenna. Bellagio was across the lake from where our hotel was situated and despite being heavily touristed is well worth the visit. It’s a beautiful town and is loaded with shops, restaurants, wine bars and villas on the outskirts. (Of course, all of Lake Como is loaded with great villas.)  Here is the lakefront of Bellagio:

And here is a hot chick in Bellagio near the shops:

We spent a couple of days in Bellagio hanging around. There is a neighboring town called Pescallo which you can get to by a short path from Bellagio (which we skipped resulting in a loooooong walk around). Pescallo is a small, quiet fishing village where you can get lunch in peace away from the crowds of Bellagio. Here is Krysten at lunch:

And here is a picture of the village:

Another great place we went to is Varenna which is on the opposite shore of the Lake. It’s a smaller town than Bellagio but has less people so it makes for a nice visit. It has a few lakeside restaurants (which of course we visited) and a decent size town. Bellagio is the world famous town – Varenna is the sleeper. I liked Varenna better. Here is the town from the ferry:

And here is the town from the town:

All in all, it was a good trip to Lake Como but it’s a little sleepy up there. We also made a slight mistake by trying to walk to the town next to us – Menaggio. (Okay, it was my idea…)  It started ok but we ended up walking along a highway, running from pathway to pathway down the road between cars, hiking along the inside of a tunnel and generally starving to death when we got there because nothing was open except for a few restaurants that were full. We hoped a ferry and went back to Bellagio for some lunch and vino…  Here is Menaggio:

So, that’s it. Our time in Italy was complete. All that remained was a train ride to Milan and a plane ride to Barcelona. Here are the pics for:

Bologna:  http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157608454677833/show/

Parma:  http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157608379052637/show/

Lake Como:  http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157608158086900/show/

This is the part where I wax poetic about Italy and the near two months we spent there, what it meant to us, what was great, what wasn’t, how we’ve changed, etc. So here it is:  Italy is great.

Okay, that’s that.  Up next, Spain (and I’ve been so slow with the blogs that Krysten is almost done with the Spain blog).

Ciao

After our month in Rome we still had another few weeks to spend in Italy so we headed to Florence. Florence was basically the continuation of our trip with Ev and Charles and the beginning of our adventures with Owen LaFreniere, a friend of ours from S&C and Goldman.  Since Ev’s guest blog covers a bunch of stuff, I’m not going to retell that portion – I’ll just mention a few highlights. First, of course, has to be the Duomo which is a church in the city center that sports the third largest dome in the world (the first two being St. Peters in Rome and St. Paul’s in London). Here is a shot from the front corner with part of the dome but it’s hard to get it all into one picture:


And here is a shot from a hill we climbed where you can see the whole Duomo and get a better feel for its size – it sort of lords over the rest of Florence (no pun intended):


Second, behind the Duomo is a museum focusing on the Duomo and the artists that worked on it.  There is lots of great stuff in there but for some reason one sculpture by Donatello stuck with me:


It’s carved out of wood which is pretty cool and it depicts Mary Magdalene walking in the desert. Not sure what it is about it I like so much but I think it’s sort of haunting or something.

There are other things I can’t show you because the museums don’t allow cameras but you’ll have to take my word for it when I say that the Uffizi gallery is fantastic and the David is really more impressive than you’d expect despite all the hype. Here is the only picture I was able to snap in the Uffizi – I took it out the window. The bridge is the Ponte Vecchio which is a somewhat famous bridge you may have seen before:


Anyway, all good things must come to an end and Ev and Charles had to make their way back to reality.  But, as I mentioned earlier, in keeping with the theme of guest appearances on our travels, we hooked up with my friend Owen who used to work with me at Goldman Sachs and at Sullivan & Cromwell. If you don’t know who he is, here is a pic:


He, like us, was jetting around a little bit between jobs (although I think he may be working hard in Los Angeles at this point).  So, we hit the sights together in Florence and then decided to rent a car and check out the Tuscan countryside, a.k.a., wine country. Our first stop was supposed to be Montalcino where they make some of my favorite wines – Brunello Di Montalcino and Rosso Di Montalcino. We headed out not knowing where we would stay and without directions and put our faith in our trusty GPS unit. The Tuscan countryside was amazing and around every bend you see something beautiful. It was one of highlights of Italy.  Here is a pic, although I could post a hundred without getting the point across:


Of course, it was not without its little bumps in the road. Literally.  The thing with GPS is that sometimes it doesn’t send you over the best roads – just the most direct. Montalcino is on the top of a mountain and, as we approached, our trusty GPS unit directed us onto a dirt road which began going up the mountainside. Initially, we figured that it would turn into a paved road and flatten out a bit as we went. Unfortunately, our rental car was very low to the ground and after a couple of minutes it started scraping the bottom pretty significantly. Then the road got steeper. And narrower. And steeper. And narrower. The car was having trouble getting up the hill even in first gear so I had to start fanning the clutch to get mini-spurts of power. I knew if we had to back down we would be in serious trouble and that if I stopped I couldn’t get going again. I felt like I was racing the Baja 1000 in a Pinto. On the right side of the road (which was very close to the right side of the car) there was no rail – just a steep pitch with some trees that may or may not have stopped us from rolling downward. Owen was telling me to stop in a voice that was much higher in pitch than his normal low frequency growl and Krysten was calmly telling me not to stop, evidently also understanding that we would be going backward if we stopped. I was seriously thinking we made a huge mistake…

So basically, I sweat like a pig, Owen screamed like a 12 year-old girl, the car skidded and scraped its way up the mountain, and Krysten basically shrugged it off as a non-event and enjoyed the view. Go figure… We finally hit pavement and the town of Montalcino about five minutes later. I literally didn’t calm down for about ten minutes afterward and I think Owen may be permanently damaged. This is a picture from the top of the hill – the view was amazing and this doesn’t do it justice but here it is anyway:


Anyway, we get to the top and stop in the first hotel only to be told that there are no rooms and that there is only one other hotel in town and they are sold out as well. The only available hotels are at the bottom of the mountain (predictably). When we ask whether there is another way down the mountain the lady behind the counter laughed a little at the idiot Americans who came directly up the Death Trail and explains that we can easily get down (or up) on a nice paved road on the opposite side of the mountain. Stupid GPS!!!

So Owen makes some calls and finds us a great hotel. TRAVEL TIP: Owen is not in charge of hotels. Bad move. Don’t do it. Save yourselves. Exhibit A: We start driving to the hotel and stop to figure out where we are going and I ask Owen if he wants to call the hotel to tell them we will take the rooms and he says we don’t need to because we are almost there. When we get lost looking for the hotel Owen calls the hotel for directions only to learn that the rooms are gone. (Actually, that’s not so bad but since he beat himself up over it I thought I’d kick him while he’s down!)

So, we end up having to stay in a small town down the road a bit called Pienza. But, as luck would have it – it’s a great little town. So great, that we decide to get a hotel for a few days and make it our base of operations for Tuscany. Here is a pic of me, Owen and Little Spree in Pienza:


So, Owen picks a local hotel from the guide book to reserve us some rooms for the next two nights resulting in, wait for it…Exhibit B: He somehow misreads the numbers and dials the number for a hotel in another town called Montepulciano. The next day we show up at the hotel we thought we reserved in Pienza and chaos ensues because they have no reservation for us and Owen already paid for the other hotel in the other town!

But, as they say, it’s better to be lucky than good and Owen is certainly lucky because the hotel he accidentally reserved turns out to be cheap and awesome and the town is only about twenty minutes away. (Besides, we had planned to visit there anyway.) So, although his hotel batting average is low as far as intent goes, he actually batted 1.000 for results. But if you’re out there in the road with Owen, let him read maps or something instead…

Anyway, on to more important things. Montepulciano is an old hill town and they have their own variety of wine in the area – Rosso Di Montepulciano (not to be confused with Rosso Di Montalcino) which is very nice. Here is a pic of the town which should give you an idea of what it’s like:


Pienza is a town known for it’s cheeses and is between Montepulciano and Montalcino. It’s another old town on a hilltop with a few wine bars with local wines (of course). Here is a picture of the countryside from Pienza:


We also had one of our best meals in Italy in Pienza. It’s basically a day trip kind of town so at night it is mostly locals and the restaurant we went to struck me as one in which everyone knew each other (except us). Nobody spoke English so it had a nice authentic feel. Add to that the fact that it looked like there were basically three or four cooks – all of them looking like Italian grandmothers. Perfetto! The meal was great, the ambiance was great, the people were great. In short, it was, well, great!

Montalcino is probably the most touristy town in the region and is on top of a mountain. It’s a beautiful city and there are oodles of wineries nearby and lots of wine shops in the city. Here is the city from a distance:


On the advice of a friend of Owen’s we hit the Poggio Antico vineyard to sample some of the Brunellos. We took in a lunch before the tasting which was fantastic. Unfortunately, I was driving so I could not partake in much more than a taste but the food was great (but pricey). When it came time to taste the wines, Owen dropped a couple of names that his friend gave him – the names were of the owner and his son and the manager we were talking to invited us to accompany her on a tour she was giving. Go Ow-En, it’s ya Birth-day!!! SO, we took the tour and tasting three or four varieties of Brunello which had gone through different aging processes and left with a few bottles of fine wine to drink back on our roof deck at the hotel. But before we left, we decided to get a picture of Owen in the fields:


Can you see him? Here is a closer shot:


See him now? Just in case, here is a much closer shot:


Finally, here is a gratuitous grape shot (it’s like porn for wine lovers):


Soooo, after a few days of tasting wine and looking at beautiful countryside, we decided that we were having more fun that we were supposed to so we headed back to Florence, dropped of the car (or what was left of it after some significant off-roading and my slightly overshooting a parking spot and tapping a wall) and set off for Bologna.

Ok – so here are the slideshows (one for Florence and one for Tuscany). There are lots of pics again because I haven’t weeded out any repeats or bad shots yet – I know, this is becoming a pattern with me but there is only so much time in the day and I’m really busy laying on the beach and stuff. The setup appears to have changed so there should be an “info” button on top to toggle the descriptions (I have to click the full screen mode thingy on the bottom right to see the info button but that might be a Firefox thing):

Florence:  http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157607559933169/show/
Tuscany:  http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157607559885983/show/

Next up, the Italy wrap up with Bologna, Parma and Lake Como.

Ciao

Okay – so here is the Guest Blog for Rome and Florence from Ev (Krysten’s Mom).  In case you forgot who she is or haven’t read our Rome blog below, here is a picture of Ev on the merry-go-round in Florence:

Since I’m adding a few pics, she gets black letters and I’m in blue.  So, without further ado, here’s Ev:

Our trip to Rome, Florence and the Tuscany area was a dream.  Although we had been on a tour of Italy a few years earlier, traveling with Krysten and Ken was  much more fun.  We met up with them in Rome, where we shared a lovely two-bedroom apartment with a terrace overlooking the ancient city and St. Peter’s Basilica.  Each evening, after touring the sites, we would have wine and cheese on our terrace and talk late into the night.  Ken sometimes strummed his guitar, and the weather was perfect.  White doves filled the dark starry skies, flying gracefully in flocks.  (Ken swears they were seagulls, but that doesn’t sound as romantic.)

During the days, which were very hot, we visited the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, took a boat ride down the Tiber to see the amazing ruins of Ostia Antica, saw the Roman baths, were awed by Michelangelo’s Pieta’ at St. Peter’s Basilica and ate and drank much too much at quaint outdoor cafes on cobble stoned streets. Our apartment was within walking distance to the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps and, most importantly, the gelato store!  It was all so perfect – and we did throw our coins into the Trevi Fountain to ensure that we would return again one day.  Inside St. Peters:

We  ran into a bit of a problem when we tried to get to the Colosseum though.  Ken was our bus guide, and all seemed to be going well until we watched the Colosseum fade from sight. Ken reassured us that the bus was just “making a loop” and would return to the site. Ken, being the Official Person of Knowledge for the entire bus now, watched (along with the rest of us) as we pulled into the terminal and  the bus driver actually left the bus.   Ken was undaunted, though,  and further reassured EVERYONE on the bus that we would soon be going to the Colosseum.   A couple from Idaho actually believed him.  Finally, the bus driver returned, but the bus did not go anywhere near the Colosseum.; A few stops later, the couple from Idaho asked Ken which direction he was taking to the Colosseum.  When he told them, they immediately turned and took  the opposite route! The Kimmetts in the Colosseum (proof that I got them there – eventually):

All too soon,  our stay in  Rome was over, and it was time to take the train to Florence.  There, we stayed at a quaint old hotel across the street from the Duomo and within walking distance to just about everything.  Even though  every room at the hotel but the K’s had a fresco on the ceiling, they were good sports about it. (‘tho their noses seemed more than a little out of joint). Here, at the hotel, Chaz had a unique elevator episode.  The quaint birdcage elevator at the hotel was apparently not working fast enough for Chaz.  His solution was to press the button VERY hard so that it would magically rise to the second floor at a faster pace.  Unfortunately, he pressed the button so hard, that it collapsed, and smoke started bellowing out of the button hole.  Well, I never saw the old boy move so fast! In his frenzy to escape, he ran down two flights of stairs, leaving me standing by the smoking button hole to face whatever prosecution might ensue.  My hero!

In Florence, we visited the Duomo, the Uffizi and the Accademia (where we saw the most perfect sculpture ever created – the statue of David by Michelangelo. ( Boy, is that David a hunk)! The front of the Duomo:

At the Uffizi we had yet another strange elevator experience.  As Chaz and I tried to take the elevator down to the bottom floor, there was only one button, which had an arrow pointing “up” on it.  This very bright professor husband of mine said, quite seriously, “Oh, we can’t take this elevator.  It only goes up!”

One of our favorite experiences took place on the last day of our stay in Florence.  Krysten and Ken had arranged for a private tour of the Tuscany countryside, its medieval villages (one dating from the year 1,000 a.d.!) and small hamlets.  The scenery was magnificent. We drove through miles and miles of dirt roads hugged by  grapevines and olive trees, culminating in a tour of a privately-owned vineyard.  There, we had lunch with a friendly couple from Holland.   In one of the villages we visited (can’t remember the name):

I can’t end this without telling you about this “lunch.”  It started out with bruschetta, pate and wine.  Then came a big dish of pasta and another type of wine.  Then, when we thought we were done eating, a third course consisting of mouthwatering roast pork and fresh peas was placed before us, with a yet another  type of wine - and somehow we found room for all of it!  Ok, now you might think that would be it, but then came creamy vanilla gelato and biscotti, and wine in which to dip the biscotti, as well as small cups of espresso.  What a feast! Ev stealing a grape at the winery where we had the lunch – it’s called Tenuta Di Sticciano:

The entire trip to Italy was magical, and being with Krysten and Ken made it unforgettable.  I can still hear the sounds of the flute floating throughout the cobble stoned streets of Florence at night and see the drunken puppet man making his hand puppets dance in the cool early-Fall air.

We loved traveling with the K’s, and it was very hard  leaving them behind when it was time to go home. (Ken gets an A+ for putting up with his in-laws for two full weeks without cracking, by the way)!  Thanks for the wonderful memories, Krysten and Ken. We love you!

Well, our month in Rome is complete (and, truth be told, has been for a while but I’ve been quite lazy with the blogging thing lately). Why Rome for a month? We came here for a few reasons. There was of course the obvious – food, wine, history, wine, food, wine, cheese, etc. But we also came here to perfect our Italian – more on this later. The fact is, you can also go to Rome and do nothing at all. It’s just a great city with an awesome vibe. Every building is old and the streets are windy, narrow and full of character. Here are a couple of pictures of random streets:


Restaurants like this are everywhere:


Ok, enough about the greatness of Rome – What did we do? Where to start… Since we were there for a month we had time to do just about everything! The trip started off with a bang when we learned that our friend Alexandra was in town for our first weekend. For those of you that don’t know her, here she is:

We met up with Alexandra near the Trevi Fountain and were immediately confronted with a big decision – What to do? The Colosseum, The Roman Forum, hit some museums, The Pantheon, etc. Enough to make your head spin. So we started with the obvious choice: Boozy Lunch!!! For those of you that are unaware, Boozy Lunch is a drinking methodology for advanced and/or expert drinkers whereby you start drinking at lunchtime until, well, you’re done drinking with the result that you’ll end up going to sleep a little before midnight instead of at four a.m. when the bars close. When you wake up the next day you’re fully rested and you’ve basically slept through your hangover, thus avoiding the “lost day” typically following such endeavors. In short – start early and end early. That’s the theory at least. In practice, it’s basically just lunch and dinner with drinking along the way.

Anyway, in actuality, we really only decided to get lunch without knowing drinks would be involved. However, after perusing the menu Krysten and Alexandra desperately wanted some wine so they deviously twisted my proverbial arm so I joined in (clearly, those two are bad influences on me). Nine hours (literally), a full lunch, two pizzas and a cheese plate later we were still sitting at the same restaurant sampling some very fine wines (or maybe it was grapejuice – I couldn’t tell by then). I think I speak for all of us when I say we were quite proud to hear the waitress exclaim “Oh My God!!!” somewhat loudly when we ordered our last bottle of wine. Personally, I brushed away a tear. Here we are at our “Impromptu Boozy Lunch” – only the limoncello remaining on the table:

We had planned during our lunch to go the next day to the Palio which is a horse race in Siena and it seemed like such a good idea that we called our friend The Loper to inform him of our obvious awesomeness. Oddly, I think he was less than impressed because all he remarked was “What the #$%^ is The Palio?” So, here is a link that tells you all you need to know: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palio_di_Siena. Sounds like a great time to me. Unfortunately, getting there seemed like a pain and somewhere along the line the Boozy Lunch theories broke down and none of us rose to the occasion in the morning so it wasn’t to be. Next time!!!

The rest of the time Alexandra was with us (only a few days) we did some mild sightseeing, kicked back and relaxed and basically ate a ton of food (I was on the Penne all’Arrabbiata” tour and have sampled it at just about everywhere in Rome). I walked away with a few new favorite dishes: (i) Spaghetti all’Amatriciana which is a tomato based sauce with bacon and is spicy, (ii) Taglialini con Cacio e Pepe which is a pasta in a white sauce that is very cheesy and peppery and (iii) every kind of pizza they make which is every kind of pizza. (Of course, the arrabbiata is still up there…)  Here are Krysten and Alexandra hanging out in Piazza Del Popolo (which is where the entry gate to Rome used to be and where you could see chariot races and if you were really lucky public torturing and executions):


And relaxing again on the Spanish Steps:

We also managed to squeeze in a little music in the park.  During the summer months there are tons of concerts in various parks around the city.  We went to see a saxaphone quartet led by another sax player at Villa Monticello.  They set up a bunch of tables in the park and served dinner (although we didn’t eat there).  It was a much nicer place than we expected.  I thought we’d be sitting on the ground basically.  Anyway, the music was great – I didn’t think you could have a group of nothing but sax players but they pulled it off nicely.  Here is a pic of the show – not that it means much without hearing them:

After Alexandra left it was time to get down to business – the language business. One reason we decided to stay here for a month was that we started studying Italian last year so we thought this would be a chance to hone our considerable linguistic skills. We were in class for three hours a day, five days a week and did a couple of hours of homework every night. I am proud to report that on paper I know lots of rules of grammar and can conjugate numerous verbs. Unfortunately, speaking Italian is another story. I typically look like a deer in the headlights whenever someone says the simplest thing to me. It’s somewhat depressing but I learned a valuable lesson: learning a foreign language is kind of hard. I know, seems like common sense. But, in any event, progress was made, just not nearly as much as I thought. Here is Little Spree studying in the park:

So, we didn’t do a whole lot while we were in school until we were joined by Krysten’s parents, Ev and Charles. Since introductions are in order, here they are (Ev is not flipping you off – she is throwing a coin into the Trevi Fountain – if you throw it over your left shoulder with your right hand then it means that you’ll return to Rome one day.  She came back for a do-over a few days later due to the shoulder mix-up.):


Since we were all traveling together we decided to rent an apartment for a week instead of doing the hotel thing. The apartment was roughly between the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain and was pretty amazing. It was nice and spacious inside but the real attraction was the balcony. You could have a party with a fifty or more people up there without a problem and when you looked around you basically had a view of all of Rome. It was very conducive to our almost nightly wine and cheese fests (Charles and Ev are bad influences on me as well…) or just for sitting and doing nothing. Here is a view of the Vatican at sunset from the balcony:

We spent the last week in Rome with Charles and Ev hitting all the sights and eating everything in sight. I’m not going to go into too much detail because Ev is working on her guest blog so it’ll become largely repetitive. A couple of highlights though: my new favorite museum is the Borghese Gallery which houses a number of Bernini sculptures (my new favorite sculptor) among other things. Unfortunately, no cameras were allowed inside so I have no pictures – but here is a link to their website showing the sculpture (it doesn’t do it justice – it’s really impressive in person) and describing what it is:  http://www.galleriaborghese.it/borghese/en/edafne.htm

Also, the one thing we saw this time that I never even knew about was Ostia Antica. Ostia Antica is about thirty minutes outside of Rome and is basically the remains of an entire port city. One of Alexandra’s colleagues recommended it to us and it was great. Very cool and less crowded than many of the Rome attractions.  Here is Charles standing near the remains of a temple in the town square:

And here is the theater – it’s pretty well preserved and it looks like they do some shows there:

Given that Krysten is into the theater, Little Spree agreed to run some lines with her on the stage:

Okay, so as I mentioned, the rest of the Rome attractions will be (I hope) covered by Ev’s guest blog.  In the meantime, here is the slideshow from Rome – a word of caution, there are tons of pictures (even though I only put about half on here) and there are probably a lot of similar looking ones because I didn’t weed out all the bad ones yet. If you haven’t discovered it yet, when the slideshow is playing you can click the buttons in the lower left to make it move faster or slower or move it manually. You can also use the “filmstrip” thing on the bottom to jump ahead. Unfortunately, most of the pictures are of buildings and scenery rather than being pics of us. In any event, here it is:

http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157607559986853/show/

Click the “i” in the center to toggle the descriptions.

Florence is already under way as we are making a push to get caught up now that we are wrapping up Europe and heading to Egypt, India, Nepal etc. (The places where we get to eat exotic foods, contract rare diseases, and generally try to do things we would never do normally because it will make for good blog material…

One last thing – although I didn’t discuss it, I wouldn’t feel that my blog entry was complete without at least one picture of the Colosseum.  So, here it is – I just love the way it sort of rises up right at the end of the street:

Ok, that’s it for now…

Ciao

Ok, Berlin and Prague are actually two different cities but we really didn’t spend a lot of time in either of them so we thought we’d just do one blog entry covering both and then we’ll be caught up to Rome. Besides, we don’t really have a lot to say about either of them.

Berlin was a bit of an odd place for us. I’ve heard lots of great things about it so I’m going to go ahead and assume that we somehow just missed the boat there. To me, it seemed to lack it’s own vibe or something – it was just sort of vanilla. On the sightseeing side of things, we took one of those buses around the city that let you jump on and off just to get our bearings but there really wasn’t much to it. I kept waiting to hit the really awesome part of the city but it never materialized. One pretty cool sight is the Berlin Cathedral which is also called the Berliner Dom. Here is a pic of what it looks like:

Pretty great looking building. Problem is, there aren’t really enough of them. While there are some historic sights around town, it’s not loaded with them (at least not in an obvious way) like many other European cities such as Rome or Paris. I would be remiss if I didn’t throw in a picture of the Brandenburg Gate which is where people used to enter Berlin. They say it was built as a symbol of Peace and is one of the most famous gates in Europe so here it is – have at it:

Probably the most interesting sight in Berlin (at least to me) was the remains of the Berlin Wall. They are currently constructing a museum on the site where the Nazi Secret Police operated and they have a long walkway with tons of photographs and stories that basically tell the story of Nazi Germany. Obviously, not a pretty tale. It was pretty interesting though to see where the wall was and they marked the area where Checkpoint Charlie was located which was where you would cross between East and West Berlin (if you were lucky). Apparently, people often tried to make it across and if you were lucky enough to get across you could stay but there are stories plastered on the walls there that tell of people who make it within a hundred feet or so and get shot by the guards and are left to die in no-man’s land because the Americans were not allowed to go out and get them. Yikes! Here is the wall, or at least what’s left of it:

And here is what’s left of Checkpoint Charlie:

It really didn’t look anything like this when it was operating – it looked more like the Mexican border. I’m not sure how they ended up with this…

One of the strangest sights there is the Holocaust monument. It’s just a bunch of concrete blocks. Nothing written there or anything. It’s not really clear to me what it is supposed to represent. Somebody feel free to clue me in if you understand it – here is a pic:

Anyway, I think another problem we had was that our couple of days there were on a Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. The whole town shuts down on Sunday apparently and the museums and attractions close for Monday so it didn’t leave us a lot of time.

The city is known somewhat for its art scene, music and nightlife but we fell well short of the mark on this front as well. Owing partly to our Sunday arrival and partly to the fact that we were coming from a few weeks of partying in France and Amsterdam, we didn’t hit the nightlife very much at all and, try as we might, we just couldn’t get hooked into the art scene. You sort of have to be in the know to figure out where the small galleries are (we had already had our fill of large museums for the moment).

Sooooooo, in short, I think we just failed miserably at being tourists in Berlin. We were basically boring. What can I tell you. We’re generally pretty awesome and have set the bar so high that it’s hard to deliver every single time. One guy who did have a good time was Little Spree – I think he was excited because the main river flowing through the city is called the River Spree – so here it is, your moment of Zen, Little Spree hanging out by the River Spree:

Other than that, much of our time in Berlin can be summed up as follows: Meh… Next time we hit Germany we will spend our time in the countryside which, from the train at least, looks beautiful.

Here is the slideshow for Berlin – click the “i” in the middle of the pics to toggle the descriptions:

http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157606664569469/show/

So, next it was on to Prague…

Prague was maybe the biggest disappointment we faced so far on the trip. We had pretty high hopes for it and were really excited about going there. We even skipped over Dresden in Germany to get there a day or two early. Not sure that was a good idea. The city is absolutely jammed with tourists, the restaurants and bars are total rip-offs (we actually sat down at one place to discover that the hamburgers were $30) and the areas that aren’t overrun or expensive basically have nothing to do. It strikes me as a town that wants to be like Amsterdam but doesn’t have a clue how to go about it. The irony is that the old town section of the city (as well as a few other areas) is beautiful. It looks like Walt Disney designed it with castles, cathedrals and wonderful buildings everywhere. Here is a pic of a church (on the right) in the town square (you can also see the ridiculous crowds):

And this is the Astronomical Clock in the same square (I have no idea how it works, just thought it was pretty cool – feel free to Google it):

One more – here is another Church in the same square:

Another one of the star attractions as far as the sights go is the Prague Castle which is located on a hilltop opposite the city center. I think I read somewhere there it is among the largest castles ever built in the world. It has it’s own cathedral on the grounds which is an attraction in and of itself. We didn’t go into the cathedral because it was super crowded but it is sizeable. Here is a pic of the front (had to take it at a sharp angle because the surrounding walls are only about thirty feet away):

And here is what it looks like (part of it anyway) from the gardens which are in the back of the castle:

The other “must-see” in Prague is the Charles Bridge. You may have seen it in pictures before but I’m sticking one here anyway in case you haven’t:

It’s a cool bridge but when you walk on it you are like human pinball bouncing into everyone else trying to make their way across a bridge full of vendors selling trinkets or offering to paint your picture. Prague is one of those places where they don’t seem to care if they cover every square inch with souvenir shops and it kind of ruins the experience of being in an ancient place. They need to regulate permits or something over there.

So, beyond the sightseeing adventures we managed to indulge in a little culture by going to an old cathedral to see a classical music performance which was great and we also found a couple of nice restaurants and bars. Here is the place where they had the concert – seemingly every cathedral has one nightly though:

They definitely have some nightlife and if we were looking for a place to just party it would probably fit the bill nicely. You can get yourself a nice shot of absynthe and a fat beer everywhere you turn and if you are so inclined there are plenty of places to see the strip clubs but, as you can guess, that wasn’t on our agenda.

The best part of our trip is always meeting locals or at least encountering them. Unfortunately, as my friend Matt described it, the only locals you run into are operating shops or working at restaurants. It gives the city a weird feel like they’ve set up an area that is the “Pretend Czech Republic” for tourists but when they get off work they go somewhere else entirely. So, all in all, not the town I expected. In any event, that’s just my two cents. I’m know plenty of people love Prague – it just wasn’t for us.

Soooo, here is the slideshow for Prague – click the “i” to toggle the descriptions:

http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157606664572275/show/

Just to complete the loop, after Prague we flew home for our friend Waj’s wedding (which was well worth the trip – congrats again Waj) and then flew back to Rome for language school for a month. So, next up…Roma!

Ciao

After a great week in Paris, it was time for us to head to Lille for Remona and Jacques’s wedding. You might remember Remona from the Paris blog as the bride-to-be who was the beneficiary of the impromptu lap dance from Matt (sans shirt) that managed to get him invited to the wedding, although I suspect his sparkling teeth (and personality) also had something to do with it. Remona is a great friend of ours from our days in undergrad at NYU, where she definitely was the life of the party. Back then her fashion choices were somewhat questionable — knee socks and vinyl skirts were wardrobe staples — but not nearly as suspect as her taste in men. Luckily she has outgrown both the knee socks and the borderline boyfriends and decided to settle down with a great French guy, Jacques. Now that I know Jacques, I realize marrying a French guy comes with a few bonuses, namely, the opportunity to have a fabulous French wedding, annual trips to this beautiful country, lots of family events involving French wine and cheese, and in-laws with a ski chalet in the French Alps. The perks, quite honestly, outweigh those of someone who marries a guy, say, from Middletown, NY, although of course that is a close second. Anyway, Matt, Ken and I headed to Lille, and after partying the nights away in Paris we were ready for a few days of rest and relaxation in the countryside of France. Little did we know that Lille is actually quite a happening town with many cafes and bars, a bit like a mini Paris with a touch of Belgium thrown in. It has a lovely town square, many restaurants, many more delicious wines and cheeses, and the bonus of local Belgian beers on tap. Here is a view of Lille from our hotel room window:

And one of the main square:

Upon arrival, we were reunited with our friends from Paris, and as might be expected, we hit the town for (more) pre-wedding festivities. For me, France is a country that really knows how to be a great host. Wherever you go, it seems, a great time can be had at any cafe, bar, street corner or town square. Of course, it helps to have a group of friends ready to whip out the bear claw at a moment’s notice:

Also, we finally found the store Ken and Matt were looking for on that infamous night in Paris. Apparently Lille is the place to go for bachelorette party favors. Better update that phrasebook, Lonely Planet! Unfortunately, it closed before we were able to purchase the desired item and so sadly Remona passed from single to married without wearing even one horribly embarrassing item of clothing! I am sure Ken will never forgive himself.

Before I move on to the wedding, a few words about the bride and groom. As I mentioned, Ken and I met Remona many years ago in undergrad where the three of us lived on the same floor in the dorm at NYU. Remona was this cute little Malaysian girl, who as I mentioned, liked to wear knee socks, and also had really straight flat school-girl bangs. She loved to play Ring My Bell on the jukebox over and over and had a funny habit of burning you unintentionally with her cigarette and then unintenionally spilling her drink on you in the same spot, which soothed the burn. Then, as now, she wore only platform shoes, very high ones at that, and once when asked how tall she was gave an average between her actual height and her height in platforms (average height, 5 feet). Then, as now, she was always the friend with whom I had the most fun, and we loved to stay out late and get into trouble. She is one of the friendliest, warmest and most lovable people I have met in this world, as I am sure her many friends agree. Even though she lives halfway around the world from me, whenever we are together it’s as though not a day has passed. And even though I really wish she would move back to NY, I have to admit that she seems to be doing well in Malaysia, with a successful career in advertising, her own home and a great guy to share it all with.

This brings me of course to Jacques. Ken and I had the peasure of meeting Jacques in France in the winter of 2007 when he and Remona invited us, along with Shakira and her husband Alphonso, to his family’s ski chalet in La Clusaz in the French Alps. Ok, if you know me and especially Ken, you know that we are bound to like anyone with ski-in ski-out access in the Alps. But really, there is so much more to Jacques than just his chalet! When we arrived in La Clusaz, he welcomed us with open arms. As the only fluent French speaker, he quickly became the most requested member of the group, as in…”How do we rent skis? Let’s wait for Jacques,” or “How do we order this crepe? Where’s Jacques?,” or “Where can I buy underwear? (after British Airways lost my luggage) Jacques, can you ask?” Of course everyone has his limits and when Shakira and I wanted him to ask the bartender to kill the French music and play some Madonna, he refused, as did the bartender. So much the better because we then were witness to some fine dancing by the French citizens in the bar…and let me tell you Jacques shakes a mean booty to French folk music. Jacques also has a special talent for keeping the fire burning (literally) and he earned the nickname The Fire Whisperer. Generally, over the course of the week in La Clusaz we got to know Jacques as fun, lovable and incredibly generous. We are happy now to have him as a friend.

And now, back to Lille, and the event which brought us to France in the first place, The Wedding!

The wedding kicked off on Saturday morning with the civil ceremony at the town hall in Wambrechies, where Jacques grew up and his parents still live. We met at his parent’s beautiful house, and walked to the town hall together for the ceremony. The ceremony was conducted in French (it being France and all), but appeared to include all the usual I do’s and ring exchanges. And before I knew it, Jacques and Remona were married! Here is the first kiss:

And the happy couple exiting the town hall:

Then it was back to the house for the religious ceremony. Given that this was a Muslim wedding ceremony conducted in French, and I am an English speaking Catholic girl, I cannot offer much of a narrative. I can say that the groom was looking dandy in his Malaysian outfit:

As was the bride (oh wait, hmmm those are not Malaysian clothes):

After the ceremonies, we enjoyed an incredibly delicious gourmet lunch prepared by Jacques’s uncle, who is a chef, and then had time for a quick nap before…

THE RECEPTION!!!

Ok, I have attended my fair share of weddings, but I must tell you, the French really know how to party. Let’s start with the setting: an adorable brick farmhouse on the outskirts of town with a courtyard and a view of a winding river. Piano music wafting through the air. Cocktails and wine. The sun slowly sinking below the horizon. Add to this an incredible dinner feast…duck prepared four different ways, foie gras, seafood, a selection of cheese, chocolate fondue and delicious French wine. A few toasts. A slideshow of the bride and groom growing up. And then, just when you think it is all about to end, because after all it is almost midnight and we have been eating and drinking for hours…the DJ begins!

It’s a bit difficult for me to explain what happened next. Suffice to say, this group of partygoers threw themselves onto the dance floor with reckless abandon. I am talking a swing dancing mosh pit. Enter that dance floor and be prepared for someone to randomly toss you overhead or slide you helter skelter across the room! I feared for my life! No funny little chicken dance here…this was some serious revelry! And this dancing went on for hours and hours. Everyone in the place, spinning, whirling and twirling into the wee hours of the morning. Of course there was a brief respite from the fray for the bride and groom’s first dance. Here is a pic of the first dance (and believe it or not Remona is wearing 4 inch heels).

And no wedding would be complete without:

A little Grease medley:

Some YMCA:

AND of course the bear claw!

This wedding also had a photo studio where the guests could dress up in silly hats and other accessories and pose with the bride and groom. I love this idea!

With all the goings on, Remona completely forgot to throw the bouquet…so it was a bit of a rag tag group of people waiting for a cabs at 3:30 a.m. who gathered for the bouquet toss…I was standing in as an extra just to fill out the group. But no one even had a shot…Sebastian owned that bouquet! Here he is eyeing the prize:

And texting everyone at home about the good news!

We dragged ourselves home exhausted at 4 a.m., and I have to say I definitely broke my own personal record for hours clocked at a wedding, and yet it was so festive and fun that it seemed to have passed by in a blink.

The next day Jacques’ family invited remaining guests to their house for a picnic in their amazing backyard. The yard is lush and green, full of beautiful blossoming flowers and we sat and picnicked on gourmet food, surrounded by the friends and family of the bride and groom. We had a bad joke contest, won hands down by Remona’s sister Maya (I don’t remember what it was but it doesn’t matter because I think alot of it had to do with the presentation – Maya, feel free to post it in the comments) and took some silly pictures, including the now widely viewed picture of Matt’s teeth. All too soon it was time for everyone to head their separate ways. But, we will always have Paris, and Lille! Here are Jaques and Remona at the picnic:

To my beautiful friends…I love you both and wish you all the happiness in the world. Congratulations!

So, here are the slideshows – three of them in fact. One for Lille, one for the wedding and another taken by the Pros (i.e., not us) at the wedding – we’re having some issues with the links right now so you may have to cut and paste them directly into your browser:

Lille: http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157606215082748/show/

Wedding: http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157606214656992/show/

Wedding – Pros: http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157606221088219/show/

Next up: Amsterdam!

So, we’re back on the road…  For those that have been asking, we went home for our friend Waj’s wedding (and for a much needed pit stop).  We didn’t do any blogging while we were there because we had too many other things to take care of before heading back out again so we are a little behind, but Krysten is slaving away on the Lille blog trying to do justice to Remona’s wedding so it should be up soon.  I also have a quick wrap-up from the days we spent in Berlin and Prague (not too much to tell though sadly).

As of now, we are in Rome and enrolled in language school for the next month before taking off to Spain, Morocco, Egypt, India, Nepal, Tibet, Malaysia, Bali, Australia and New Zealand and then back to NY in January-ish.  At least, we think that’s what we’re doing.  We tend to change our minds daily at this point…

So, sorry for the delays, thanks for still reading and Ciao for now!

Warning:  If you had a fiance, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, son or daughter in Paris during the period covered by this blog – you may not want to read any further!  Continue at your own risk!

 

Ahhhh – Paris!  Or as it is known, Gay Paris!  (Not that there is anything wrong with that!)  Where to start…  Well, we feel a little bit like we’re coming out of the bush back to civilization.  The “bush” of course being our five star beach resort in Thailand – but nevertheless, it has the feel of returning to our world.  A world where wine and cheese reign supreme.  Where the tap water is drinkable.  Where the food can be eaten without checking the quality of the nearest bathroom.  Basically, a world where we have all of the conveniences we take for granted in our normal lives.  And instead of hitting the hotels like we’ve been doing, Krysten shrewdly planned ahead and rented us an apartment for the week right up the street from the Hotel Invalides which is within striking distance of everything.  It’s nice to be able to cook your own breakfast and generally to break up the string of hotels after a while.  We forgot to take pictures of the place but it was pretty decent for what we paid – here I am in the kitchen (practicing my barre chords):

 

 

SOOO, as many of you know, we came to France for Remona’s wedding which will be in the next blog entry which covers Lille (which is where Jacques is from).  Given that the wedding was in France we thought it would be impossible not to a lot some time to Paris.  Besides, Remona was having a bachelorette party of sorts in Paris and I figured I had to be there (it was co-ed – in fact, it was mostly guys).  Just so you know who the people are when I mention them, here is the “cast of characters” if you will:

 

Remona – the bride to be (striking her “sassy” pose on the wedding day):

 

 

Interesting facts:

 

Height:  4′0″ (in heels or platform shoes)

Likes:  Frenchmen and Dancing Federal Prosecutors (will become clear later)

 

 

Alexis:

 

 

Interesting facts:

 

Dancing style:  Does the YMCA dance to every song (see above picture)

Hails from: England – but he’s a cool guy anyway

Likes:  George Bush and the GOP  (or maybe he hates them – can’t remember…)  (Actually, I can remember…)

 

 

Shakira:

 

 

Interesting facts:

 

Likes:  Absinthe (but only one lest vile consequences will ensue)

Fighting style:  Bear Claw Attack (see above picture)

 

 

Hash (he’s the one that isn’t Remona):

 

 

Interesting facts:

 

Currently:  “Partying” in Kabul on the UN compound – sounds like a plum assignment

Likes:  Drama  (would be too difficult to explain – just trust me on this one)

 

Matt:

 

 

Interesting facts:

 

Likes:  22 year old former secretary unofficial girlfriends who are exclusive in Thailand

Dancing style:  Male gigolo

Hobbies:  Keeping teeth clean for close-ups (Remona shot this picture so I wanted it somewhere prominent)

 

Ok.  So that’s the motley crew we went out with for the bachelorette party.  We started the night out with some dinner and vino at a sidewalk cafe.  Truth be told, we spent most of our time in Paris doing just that – eating at cafes, sipping wine and eating cheese.  The great thing about France is that you can just order the cheapest wine on the list and it will generally be pretty great.  Or maybe that’s not the great thing about France – maybe it’s just the great thing about my unsophisticated palate.  Either way, it works for me – as you can see here, I’m right at home:

 

 

We promptly hit the bar scene after chowing down and began drinking the most famous of French drinks – Sangria!  Wait a minute…in retrospect, I’m not sure what possessed us to drink sangria but what the hell…  After consuming a moderate amount of booze, talk began to turn to the fact that Remona was at her bachelorette party and suffering none of the indignities that should rightfully befall a bride to be.  Matt and I took it upon ourselves to remedy the situation (after Hash offered us money to do so) by going out to purchase something embarrassing for Remona to wear.  Hash claimed that we were right up the street from a plethora of shops selling such items so we set off to quickly pick up a hat stating something like “Bride To Be” with a dildo attached to it (I warned you).  We walked for about a half an hour and learned two valuable lessons about Paris – (i) never listen to a drunk guy from London (Hash) when he claims he knows where to buy a hat with a dildo attached to it in Paris and (ii) there really aren’t many proprietors of dildos on hats in Paris (in fact, I’m not sure there are any – first black mark against Paris!).  Hash still claims there is a place nearby and we should’ve just asked around.  Unfortunately, I don’t speak French and my phrasebook didn’t include “Where can I buy a dildo on a hat?”

 

Well, slinking back to the party to announce our failures we decided to take another tack – we needed a male dancer.  Since we had no idea where to find one at that hour, we decided that Matt should take the initiave and shake his money maker.  We came to this decision based on a number of factors.  First, Matt volunteered.  Second, well, I guess it was just that one factor.  (Besides, he is in much better shape than I am – unless you’re talking about the shape of a pear, in which case I win hands down.)  So here he is mid-performance:

 

 

And here are Remona and Shakira striking a pose with him after the dance:

 

 

He actually performed pretty well and by the end had a few strays come over to get their pictures taken with him.  But alas, Matt is spoken for so only the shirt came off (Kelly, from the guest Thailand blog has switched her status from “unofficial” girlfriend to “official” – and as she reads this is probably switching back to “unofficial”).  He did so well in fact, that he earned a new nickname from the ladies – the “Federal Prostituter” (for those that don’t know him, he is a federal prosecutor who is currently plotting my slow, painful death for posting all of this).  Anyway, all good things come to an end (as do all weird things) so the shirt went back on and some more traditional dancing was underway  – Krysten dancing away:

 

 

And Matt and Remona doing the Tango:

 

 

The rest of the night was filled with mundane activities like barhopping, near fights with frenchmen on the streets (hey, they started it) and certain members of the group crying for reasons not yet ascertained.  You know, the usual stuff…  Here is a picture of the last three people standing at 7 a.m.

 

 

So, I think the rest of this may sound boring after that but oh well…  Outside of the B-Party we had about four more days to kill so we spent time doing the usual Paris type things.  We hit the Louvre which is impressive to look at even from the outside.  The trouble with the Louvre is that it’s always so crowded that after about an hour you’re ready to commit ritual suicide and crawl into a sarcophagus in the Egyptian section (not in that order – that’d be impossible).  But, in the end, it’s sort of a can’t miss thing so you tough it out until you can’t walk anymore and then spend another 45 minutes trying get out of there because you’re lost.  One part of one wing of the Louvre:

 

 

 

Now, I could insert a picture of the Mona Lisa, Venus Di Milo or something to that effect – BORING!  What I have for you is much better – a mummified cat:

 

 

Apparently the Egyptians didn’t just mumify dead people, they did their pets as well.  Creepy, but I smell a hit movie somewhere in here (and a dead cat).  One last shot – here is Krysten next to her favorite sculpture (I can’t remember what it’s called):

 

 

We also managed to hit the Musee Rodin which is my favorite museum in Paris.  It has all sculptures by Auguste Rodin.  If you don’t recognize the name, think “the Thinker” and that’s him.  He has lots of other impressive stuff as well.  Here are a couple of pics from the museum – first, the Thinker:

 

 

And here is a pic of the garden in front of the museum – the works are actually scattered around the grounds as well:

 

 

One other cool moment we had was our French picnic.  We were looking around for someplace to eat and eventually decided to grab a couple of bottles of wine, some cheese, some baguettes and a couple of sheets and head to the lawn in front of the Hotel Invalides.  It’s a huge place and lots of people hang out there to sit on the lawn, play sports, whatever.  While sitting there I was seriously thinking, “How the heck am I going to go back to work after all this?”  We have determined that we really need to win the lottery or something so we can just keep this going.  In any event, I have no idea if French people do this but it felt very French to us.  Jacques, any thoughts – French or Not French?  Here we are chillin’:

 

 

Other than that I think our time in Paris was a series of cafes, wines and cheeses.  We hit a few other places like Notre Dame – you’ll see them in the pics.  We also hooked up with our friend George who worked with us at Sullivan & Cromwell.  George, if you’re reading this, we’re worried about you!  You’re working too hard.  Come meet us in Rome…  Anyway, good to see you and thanks for taking the time out to bring us to the Steak Nazi’s restaurant.  Good stuff.

 

Anyway, here is a link to the pictures from Paris – apologies in advance because as I looked backed at them I realized that they were somewhat repetitive with respect to the sights and there are a lot from the Louvre and from the Rodin museum.  Oh well, I’ll try to think “diversity” for future pics.  Try to keep the old readership entertained…  As always, click the “I” to toggle the descriptions:

 

http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157606155435774/show/

 

So, that’s all for Paris – Krysten is working on Lille (which is actually more of a wedding blog for Remona’s wedding) so it should be up pretty shortly.

Ok – here is the guest blog written by our friend Matt and edited and approved by his now official girlfriend Kelly.  They both traveled through Thailand with us.  Actually, Matt ended up going to France with us as well to hit Paris on his way back home, made some new friends (our friends), got invited to the wedding we were there to attend, traveled to Lille with us for the wedding, found a cheaper ticket home from Amsterdam and went to Amsterdam with us for a couple of days to finish off his trip.  What can I say – sometimes you step in something and it’s almost impossible to get it off…  (Kidding of course.)  Anyway, our Paris entry is well under way and should be up by Friday evening.  In the meantime, heeeeeerrrrrrreeeeees Matt (I figured he needed his own color so he’s green):

Ken and Krysten have been doing some fairly hard traveling for the last few months: rural China, eating stuff way beyond Ken’s comfort level in Japan, building a village in Lao.  They needed a break.  They were looking for someone to hang out with, someone to chill out with. Turns out, I like hanging out.  And I really hated my job.  So, I quit.  A few weeks later, Kelly and I met up with Ken and Krysten on Ko Phanghan, a stunning, breathtakingly gorgeous island in the Gulf of Thailand. 

We did some island hopping.  We took ferries, speed boats, the everpresent longtail fishing boats, a hobby cat (captained by Ken “I used to be in the Navy” Gorsuch), a few planks of wood with a motor, and nearly every other every conceievable kind of water transport, including the occasional piggy back through waist high water.

While on the islands, we hung out on some beaches.  The beaches were stunningly breathtaking and gorgeous.  On the fifth day, I started to get a slight discomfort on my right foot from where my flip flop was ever so minorly rubbing against my toe wrong.  It really wasn’t that bad.  I wouldn’t say it actually even hurt, just slightly uncomfortable.  That was as close as anyone had to a complaint.

We went to the An Thong natural preserve, a collection of little blip islands that are stunningly, breathtakingly gorgeous.  We snorkeled and kayaked around the islands.  Our speed boat was called the An Thong Explorer, which prompted the following:

Ken: Oh man, we’ve got to get a bucket of paint and paint over the “An.”

Me: Huh-huh.  Thong Explorer.

Kelly: I keep telling you, the “th” is not pronounced like that.  Otherwise we’d be visiting Thigh-land.

But sitting on a beach getting drunk for weeks on end surrounded by stunning, breathtakingly gorgeous islands sometimes leads to strange things.  In our case, it lead to talking.  And, eventually, awkwardly, and much to my surprise, it lead to thinking.  Much of which was about Ken and Krysten’s time in Laos.  At some point (in Otto’s, the best beach bar ever), Kelly and I wrote up a calender and a map of south east asia on the back of a tissue box while drinking ubiquitous Singha beers.  The following difficult questions were asked:

What day is it?

Which island are we on?

Where is Laos?

We had only vague answers, and Ken and Krysten weren’t much help.  But we had a sense that we wanted to do something similar.  On account of beach and booze induced lethargy and a tightness of days, finding Kelvin in Laos to finish building the village Ken and Krysten started was not going to happen.  So, we wondered if there was more to Thailand than resort beach chairs and backpacker bars.  There is.

We got in touch with Andaman Discoveries and set up a three-day two-night home stay on Thailand’s east coast in the Muslim fishing village of Ban Thalon.  In 2004, the village had about 225 people, about 40 of whom were killed in the tsunami.  Unfortunately, Ken and Krysten couldn’t do this part of the trip, but because it was inspired by their experience in Laos, I hope it is okay to mention on their blog.  I don’t think Kelly and I would have done it without their encouragement.   

The experience was incredible.  We helped shell cashew nuts (individually, with a little knife – from now on, I will eat cashew nuts slowly, I had no idea how much work is involved), we replanted mangroves that were destroyed in the tsunami, we scraped the muck at the bottom of the swamp with rusty machete-like things looking for clams for dinner, we taught English (reprising Ken and Krysten’s good work with the ABC song), we picked up trash from the beach with the local kids.

We did a fair amount of helping to cook dinner, by far the best Thai food on the trip.  Kelly made coconut milk from a coconut.  Our host brought home crabs and fish he caught that day.  We ground chilies.  Good stuff. 

Our host family also let us borrow their Muslim prayer clothes, and we went to Muslim evening prayer with the children.  I’m not particularly Muslim, but this was a really amazing experience.  The children were giddy to see us there, repeatedly doing the traditional Muslim prayer greeting with us.  We felt honored to be let into their world like that – it was the first time any of the villages in this program had done that.

In the end, we really couldn’t do too much during our short time there, but hopefully Kelly and I helped out in some small way.  (Although my apologies to whomever has to sleep under the thatched roof that Kelly and I helped weave.  I wouldn’t really call that jumble of leaves water proof.)  Overall, we felt it was really worthwhile, and it was wonderul to be let into their lives like that for a few days.   

The village definitely had a lot of sadness about it.  For example, all that was left from the lower half of the village was a flag pole from the school, the tsunami took the rest.  In the small community center, we also found a kid’s cartoon story book about a boy whose village and family were destroyed by a tsunami.

But, although there was a lot of sadness, there was also a lot that was wonderful and happy about the village.  For instance, the village has nearly replaced its population – everywhere we looked, there were children under 4 years old running around.  The landscape is beautiful, and they’ve just built a new school for 1st to 6th graders up on a hill with a view of the ocean.  Old women spend their days high on “bitternut” and making soap to be exported to Bangkok and Denmark, men catch fish and crabs for their income and enter their song birds in local competitions for fun, and several young people in the village are trying to learn English to be “guides” to eco-tourists such as me and Kelly.  We saw special promise in the younger ones who used us to practice their English and to learn some new words from.  In that way, we felt more useful than all the sub-par roof-making and soap stirring we pretended to help with. All in all, it was a great experience, and even though a sewer crab scared the hell out of Kelly while she was trying to shower on the first day, we were both really glad we went.  Thanks for the idea guys.

Here we are with the locals:

 

 

And making dinner:

A couple of years ago, our friend Waj took a vacation to Thailand, and we always laughed when all he would talk about was how many great suits he had custom made at the tailor. I hesitate to admit that our first order of business upon arriving in Bangkok was to head straight to none other than Baron’s Fashions on Soi 19 (thanks for the rec BX!) so that Ken could get a suit made for the wedding we would be attending in France in July. Really, it started off that simple. Ken did not want to lug a suit around Asia for three months in his backpack, and Thailand is the custom made suit capital of the world and our last stop in Asia before heading to France. It would only take a few minutes to buy one suit…or so we thought. Three suits, six shirts, two dresses and a tuxedo later, we emerged with several fittings scheduled and a new appreciation for the Thai tailor. I can’t say for sure that we went hog wild, but the tailor did treat us to dinner…Here we are in some of our new duds:

After hitting the tailor you might think that we would be ready to start the sightseeing circuit of Bangkok, but at this point in the trip, we were tired, and so instead we went to the mall. In fact we really never did get motivated to see much of Bangkok, which as far as I can tell is not exactly a scenic city, but most definitely has all the modern conveniences you expect of a city its size (except drinkable tap water…but at least you can flush the toilet paper). We did manage to take in a movie, Sex in the City (yes, I owe Ken big for that one). We were a bit taken by surprise when we were asked to stand and pay tribute to the king before the movie started as a montage of his life showed onscreen. Also, all the sex scenes were blurred out, but that’s ok because we just walked down the street and hired a few prostitutes to reenact them. But hey, I guess at least the movie going public is extremely modest. Actually as it tuns out, nudity, including going topless on beaches, is frowned upon. Which apparently does not stop a whole lotta westerners from going topless nonethelss…but I digress.  Here is an exciting picture of me at the mall:

As I mentioned, we were feeling a little travel weary at this point in the trip, so we decided that our best bet would be to rejuvenate by heading straight for the beaches. We also wanted to get our scuba diving certification, and so after three days in Bangkok (spent at the tailor), we headed to the dive certification capital of Thailand, Koh Tao. A short flight and longer ferry ride later, we arrived in time to watch this beautiful sunset from the balcony of our bungalow on the hillside overlooking Jansom Bay on Koh Tao…yes, it was a perfect beginning to our quest for relaxation nirvana, ardently pursued over three weeks and five islands in Thailand.  Here is one of a hundred pics we took of the sunset from our balcony:

And another with a dive boat going by:

As you can probably tell from the pictures, this room on the hillside was pretty sweet, great view, private balcony overlooking the turquoise blue water and a two minute walk to the beach, but let’s not forget that we were essentially staying in the Thai jungle, which means alot of bugs. And look, we expected to get our fair share of mosquito bites and a few creepy crawlies in the room. Ken did spot a spider in our room one afternoon which he naively declared to be the biggest spider he had ever seen, although he was able to dispose of it swiftly with his shoe. He must have tempted fate, because on our way home from dinner we came across actually the biggest spider we have ever seen…I kid you not when I say it was so big that we thought it was a crab and a large one at that…we actually heard it scurry across the path before we saw it, it was way too big to be crushed with a shoe or a foot, red and hairy, and after one look we ran screaming all the way to our room, and practically turned the place upside down making sure that one of those creatures was nowhere near our bed. We knew the mosquito net was no protection for a thing that size, our only comfort the knowledge that we would probably hear it coming. This was the kind of spider that doesn’t spin a web, but burrows in the ground. We asked at reception the next day and the woman at the desk claimed to have never seen anything like that in Thailand, and sent the staff to search for it. They are braver than I. Unfortunately, we were both too out of our heads at spotting the thing to even think to take a picture, so you will have to trust me that on Koh Tao lurks the biggest spider man has ever seen.

Spider trauma aside, we had come to Koh Tao with a purpose and that was to learn to scuba dive. Of course the idea was to learn to dive in a beautiful tropical pardise, calm, clear water, sunny skies, our worst fear that of a little sunburn. However, day one we show up to our pool session in the pouring rain only to discover that we were to spend four mighty cold hours in a pool that was anything but clean and clear. I seriously needed to get out and shower as soon as I jumped in. Hmmm…not quite what I expected, but I could tough it out for just one day, right? Actually, no. We happened to hit Koh Tao during an uncharacteristic week of bad weather, and I am talking rough and choppy seas, sea sickness between dives, monsoon-like rain showers and nary a ray of sun in the three days of our class. But at the end, low and behold, Ken and I were certified open water divers. Here’s a pic of our instructor and fearless leader Hans.

You would think after such a dreadful open water experience, we would be ready for a few days rest, and honestly, I was ready to take a break from scuba until the weather cleared, but somehow the enthusiasm of our easygoing Dutch instructor and the promise of a substantial discount persuaded Ken and I to sign up for the advanced open water course beginning the next day. And lo and behold, at five a.m. the next morning we found ourselves wandering bleary eyed to the pier, this time armed with dramamine, to begin our next round of diving. The advanced class consists of five “advanced” dive courses of your choosing, and we ended up with fish identification, night diving, deep diving, underwater photography and underwater navigation. Now if this had been a true course, like Contracts or Civ Pro, Ken and I would unequivocally have failed, in particular after we navigated a square successfully using a compass underwater, but completely failed to recognize the rock we had used as a marker and so thought we were someplace else and then could not relocate the boat we came in on. But luckily, PADI is not as particular as a Georgetown professor, and after 2 more days Ken and I became certified advanced open water divers. We were rewarded for our efforts finally when the sun broke through the clouds on the day of our final dives and we swam with schools of barracuda and batfish, trigger fish, parrotfish and Ken had a close encounter with a sea snake.  Batfish:

One side note from me on Koh Tao – we hit a nice bar there where I was able to have my first Guinness since we left on this shindig.  Sounds a bit trivial but asian countries aren’t really into dark beer and most bars we encountered have only a couple of local brands, all of which were good but after a while you crave something different.  So here I am with my happy face and my first Guiness in a few months:

After a week in Koh Tao it was time to move on to another tropical paradise, Koh Phangan, where we met up with our good friend Matt and his unofficial (but exclusive in Thailand) girlfriend Kelly. Matt will be contributing a guest blog on Thailand, so stay tuned. Koh Phangan is home to what I consider to be the most beautiful beach in the world, and if I had my Thai guidebook, I would tell you the name, but’s it’s on the northeast coast and next to Santhiya resort. Swaying palm trees, powdery white sand, calm turquoise waters, a few thatched roof beach bars scattered about. Here Ken and I found true relaxation nirvana, and as such, there’s not too much for me to say about the island except that it is heaven. Here is a picture, but it does not do it justice:

And so after our few stormy days on Koh Tao, we hit a string of sunny languid days in Koh Phangan and then in Koh Samui, where we took a spectacular day trip to nearby Ao Thong Marine Park. While snorkeling, Ken and I saw two octopi in a turf battle with a couple of groupers, a highlight of our underwater viewings to say the least. We ate lunch on a deserted sandy white beach, kayaked among the sheer limestone cliffs of the park’s uninhabited islands, and hiked to a point overlooking a true blue lagoon, completely surrounded by sheer rock and fed by sea water through an inaccessible underwater passage. Koh Samui is also home to our favorite restaurant on the beach where we discovered the insurpassable combo of fried rice with pineapple and chicken with cashew nuts and pineapple, washed down with a Singha beer… all for less than $10. We also tried our hand at sailing, three of us on a hobie cat which we somehow managed not to capsize even though we had to outrun a rainstom on our way back to shore. All in all, a week of sunny skies, a little relaxation on the beach, delicious cheap Thai food, plenty of cheap beers, a little more sun…you get my drift. And so, lazy and happy, we decided it was time to head to Phuket in search of some surfable waves.  (Here’s Ken on Koh Phangan in a moment of extreme activity – sitting upright on a swing:)

MISTAKE! This is the bottom line - Phuket is a pit. It is overbuilt, dirty, sleazy. We stayed one day at Kata beach which appeared to be the dirtiest beach in Thailand and decided it was enough. Ick. Honestly, skip it.  Kata beach’s one redeeming point is that it is home to the only surfable break in Thailand.  Oddly enough, most of Thailand’s beaches are completely devoid of waves.  Of course, before you can surf a wave you have to paddle out and after about 45 minutes of desperate paddling, rough wipeouts, sand in every crevice of my body and finally being hit in the face by my own surfboard, I called it a day.  Ken fared slightly better, making it out to the lineup and almost surfing his way back in.  Anyway, if you are not a surfer, skip Phuket and head straight to Phi Phi Island. And that is exactly what we did the very next day.  Here is a pic of Phi Phi Island snapped from the boat upon our arrival:

You remember, of course, all our hard work two or three paragraphs ago getting dive certified in Koh Tao. Well one dive on Koh Phi Phi made it all worthwhile. Koh Phi Phi is without a doubt the most beautiful island we visited in Thailand. It is actually made up of two islands, Phi Phi Don which is inhabited and Phi Phi Lei, uninhabited, pristine, diving mecca and the setting of the movie The Beach. Phi Phi Don was devastated in the tsunami in 2004 and visiting the island, with its perfectly tranquil waters, you can hardly imagine how completely unreal it must have been to see a wave come out of that ocean. Most of the hotel development is on a very flat and narrow isthmus that connects the north and south ends of the island and the place is completely unprotected against such a devastating event. Of course the island now is attempting to take precautions against a recurrence of a tsunami, but I can’t say I was very heartened by the tsunami evacuation sign on the beach of our resort, which said “evacuation route” and had an arrow pointing in each direction along the beachfront, it might have well have said “in the event of a tsunami, run like hell”. I was even more concerned after I heard on the news that an earthquake had hit in the Indian Ocean “but no tsunami threat was detected”. Being there you just wonder how accurate those measurements are, and hope for the sake of everyone on the island that the system in place is working.

That being said, at press time, Koh Phi Phi is one of the most idyllic spots on earth. Being that it was our last stop in Thailand (aside from a day for our final fitting at the tailor in Bangkok), we decided to splurge on a really nice hotel. I considered it five star camping, just the kind I like. Here is a picture of the interior portion of our private villa set in the jungle, just steps from the beach – there is also a large open air space and indoor and outdoor showers:

Luckily by this time I had convinced myself that the dreaded crablike spider only inhabited Koh Tao, and yes there were alot of mosquitos, but they gave us this great electric wand for hunting mosquitos…here is Ken on the hunt.

The resort beach was set with umbrellas and bean bag chairs! A brilliant idea for wiling away the hours on the pretty beach.

The diving, though, truly made the trip worthwhile. On our second day we headed out to two islands off the coast of Phi Phi Lei, and as soon as we descended we saw a huge moray eel. Here it is (we have a cool video of it swimming around too but we don’t know how to upload those yet – coming soon):

A couple of minutes later we came across a den of ten highly poisonous lionfish:

And finally, towards the end of the dive we came across this large leopard shark, just lying on the bottom of the sea, practically posing for pictures. Amazing.  Here are me and Ken:

The visibility in the waters around Phi Phi Island is spectacular, and aside from the great fish and sharks there are loads of beautiful corals. We even made one dive to a wrecked ferry boat, now the home of a great array of underwater creatures, although the wreck itelf was kind of creepy. All of this underwater beauty is just half of what Phi Phi island has to offer, on the surface the beaches and water are stunning and the islands rise straight and sheer hundreds of feet out of the water. Yes, true tropical paradise. Here is Little Spree soaking in the sun before we catch the ferry back to the mainland.

Alas, after three glorious weeks on the beach, it was time to head back to Bangkok, and then on to France. Goodbye Asia!

Okay – due to technical difficulties, the slideshows are al broken up into individual shows for each destination and one for scuba.  Here they are:

Bangkok:  http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157606155480978/show/

Koh Tao:  http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157606158917995/show/

Koh Samui:  http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157606200796776/show/

Koh Phangan:  http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157606204360365/show/

Phi Phi Island:  http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157606294572454/show/

Scuba:  http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157606296512619/show/

Remember to click the “i” to toggle the descriptions.  Next up, Paris…

Sorry for the delays…  Believe it or not, we’ve been having difficulty getting online in France, because until now we were staying in an apartment instead of a hotel.  So, for those that have been asking, we are safe and sound in Lille and as of today we are connected again.  The Thailand and Paris blogs will be coming in short order – we will take short breaks between drinking wine and eating cheese (now our two major activities) to finish them up in the next couple of days.

Goooooooooooooooooood Morrrrr-ning Viiiii-et-nAm!!!!! (Gimme a break – I had to do it…) Actually, those of us that have been there like we have just call it ‘Nam. It changes you forever. Once you’ve been in the shit, you can never go back. You can tell who has been here by the thousand yard stare. A person gets it after he’s been in the shit for too long. It’s like you’ve really seen…beyond. I got it. We both got it. (Shiny new nickel for whever knows what movie that one came from – loosley adapted of course. Pretty easy one actually.) Ok – enough movie quotes (for now).  Here is my thousand yard stare (not too impressive, I know):

Well, it had to happen eventually. Sooner or later we were bound to have a mediocre experience in some country. Vietnam fit the bill. We started out in Hanoi and Krysten was not feeling well so we checked into a nice hotel and hung around for a few days. Unfortunately, we only had a week for Vietnam so we got somewhat off track by losing the first few days to illness and, truth be told, a fair amount of laziness.

In any event, Hanoi is a bit of a bustling city and seems to move at the speed of light. Most likely this impression is due to the unbelievable traffic. It seems that there are only a few traffic lights in the city and there are motorbikes and cars everywhere. They drive like absolute maniacs – every ride leaves you thankful you arrived intact. Everywhere else we’ve been pales in comparison (and that’s sayin’ something). They don’t stop at intersections and often you go right through with vehicles and motorbikes passing you on both sides like a swarm of ants (do ants swarm or is that just for flying stuff?). They recently passed a helmet law which has helped things but prior to passage they had 32 traffic deaths every day in Vietnam. That says nothing of the total number of accidents. One of the strangest sights I think I’ve ever seen on a highway was a mother breastfeeding her infant on the back of a moped going about 45 mph. Unbelieveable! The bus drivers somehow get paid based on how many passengers they pick up so they drive like lunatics and often end up racing down the street honking their horns, driving on the shoulders and running through the red lights (where they have them) even when traffic is crossing in order to beat the other buses to potential customers. One of the locals called them flying coffins. In short, it’s all insane and crossing the street can be a serious adventure on a weekday during heavy traffic hours.  I have no pics of the traffic (grevious oversight on my part) but here is the kind of dude you share the road with (chicken anyone?):

As far as sights go, we hit up the usual suspects for the area. We saw the Ho Chi Minh Mauseleum where he is enbalmed and on display. Kind of weird but it is a huge atraction in Vietnam. (Personally, we think it’s a wax figure but they shuffle you through so fast it’s hard to tell…) They also have the Ho Chi Minh museum there which they may want to rename as the Propaganda Museum. It’s one of the most one-sided recountings of history you’ll find anywhere so we cut it short. More interesting was the stilt house that he lived in. It’s was nicer than we expected and Krysten thought it would make a great beach house. Have to find that architect… On a serious note, it is interesting to see the quarters where he lived compared to the Presidential Palace that future Presidents stayed in. His is very simple and unassuming, smaller than the downstairs in our house, while the Palace is huge and ornate.  Here is the stilt house he lived in:

We also stopped by the Hanoi Hilton museum which was built by the French to hold Vietnamese political prisoners and unfortunately was where many of them were tortured and killed. Later, during the American war, the Vietnamese held American POWs there as well, but they were kept in the best possible living conditions, never tortured, received great medical care, played basketball, watched movies and generally lived pretty well by Vietnamese standards until they were handed back over to the United States in fantastic condition. Well, that’s the official word at the museum anyway. I think McCain’s version (among others) may differ slightly…

I must interupt this blog briefly with a message to my peeps at Goldman – you know how I always advocated the health aspects of almonds?  The below photo is from the prison courtyard next to an almond tree.  I think it speaks for itself.  So keep eating those almonds…

Other than that we kind of hung around the Old Quarter for a day or two without any definite plan. The Old Quarter is sort of billed as a Greenwich Village type of section of town. Personally, I don’t get it. There are a few cafes and bars and some art stores but for the most part it is a bunch of store fronts selling junk and the sidewalks are covered with motorbikes making you risk life and limb walking on the edge of the street while everyone honks at you and near misses occur by the dozen.  There was a cool lake though:

After all that, we decided to get out of town for our last day and head to Halong Bay. Halong Bay is an area where you can hop on a boat for the day and cruise around a bunch of small islands sticking out of the water. It’s ridiculously scenic. There are something like 2,200+ islands in all. They sort of rise almost completely vertical out of the bay. There are countless caves on the islands which many people explore on foot or by kayak. We walked through a couple of caves but didn’t do any kayaking. We were only there for the day – most people stay for a few days aboard a boat. The caves we did go through were enormous. Unfortunately, it basically rained all day when we were there so visibility outside was limited as we went through the islands. Maybe next time we’ll do the kayaking…  Here is a pic from inside one of the caves:

Here are some of the islands and a small fishing village on the water:

And, we can’t forget about Little Spree on the boat:

So, that’s about it for Hanoi. Next stop was supposed to be in central Vietnam but because we got off schedule we had to skip it and head straight for Saigon for a couple of days (we already had a ticket to Bangkok from Saigon). Saigon is a more laid back city than Hanoi which suited us just fine. We didn’t do much sightseeing – one of the only places worth mentioning is the War Remnants Museum. It has a bunch of American war machines (helicopters, aircraft, tanks etc.) that were left behind after the war but the real point of the museum is a series of photographs lining the interior of two buildings. They basically portray the horrors of the Vietnam war and it is probably the most chilling exhibit I’ve ever seen. It’s hard to look at much of it and even harder not to get a little misty by the time you leave. Like most things in Vietnam, it really tells only one side of the story so the pictures are all of either South Vietnamese or Americans committing attrocities or of North Vietnamese or civilians (usually women and children) suffering. It’s not hard of course to imagine that the NVA were no angels and showing the other side would only double the size of the gallery. In any event, the exhibit definitely makes it point – war ain’t good.

So after being completely depressed for a while from the War Remnants Museum, we decided to spend our little remaining time taking a tour of the Mekong Delta. We evidently learned nothing from our tour to the Great Wall of China because we found ourselves signing up for an organized tour without so much as a single care in the world. I would expect this kind of silly behaviour from me, but Krysten?!? She must really be getting road weary…

Now, before I start, let me caveat that our guide was actually very good but she was constrained by the tour we bought from the hotel. If we go back, she said we could contact her directly and see how the people really live, visit some villages, eat some snakes, etc. However, it was not to be for our day. We basically took a car south to an area on the Mekong, then hopped a boat which took us to an island in the river. Looking around, it was cleary an island set up solely for tourists. First stop, we end up at a large house where there are dozens of tables set up. The proprietor comes out and pulls out a wood thingy from a bee hive and shows us the honey (which, like idiots, we promptly stick our fingers into and remarkably do not get stung). Then we sit down for tea with honey at one of the tables while tour group after tour group does the same. I’m sort of wondering what this has to do with our tour of the Mekong Delta but I play along. Our guide tells us we will be leaving for the next stop in about twenty minutes so we basically wait while they put bottles of honey and candies in front of us to sell them.  My reaction to the tea:

After twenty minutes and a couple of nasty ant bites on my foot, we move on. Awesome, time for the tour! We walk about 100 yards and sit in another place where we are given some fruit to eat while we, um, well, do nothing. We eat our fruit and a few people come over to sing songs. I use the term “sing” very, very, very, very, very loosley. It was like a collection of American Idol’s worst offenders. I was hoping someone would come in and either put them or us out of our misery. No such luck. In any event, they seemed to really enjoy singing regardless of ability so we stuck it out. After sitting for a while, we start out on foot again and I’m psyched to get going. We walk for about another hundred yards and get into a canoe-like boat with two ladies paddling – one in front, one in back. We start off down this narrow canal with bamboo stalks and jungle foliage all around us.   Here is Krysten hiding from the sun on the boat:

It was actually pretty cool except for the other three thousand boats doing the same thing. Still, it felt like we were about to start seeing some things. We traveled for about fifteen minutes this way until we hit a clearing. There in front of us was the boat we came in on. Hmmm.

We get back on the boat and go to another island. When we get off on this island there is a random shop making a taffy like candy and rice whiskey so they show us how it’s all made and then show us that we can buy it. Lucky us again. We decline (I prefer my rice whiskey without snakes and scorpions in the bottle) and cross the road, hop into the back of a cart pulled by a horse which trots about one mile away and drops us off for lunch at an open-air restaurant in the jungle for lunch. Extremely random.  Now, I apologize in advance for the use of strong language, but WHAT THE FUCK DOES ANY OF THIS HAVE TO DO WITH TOURING THE MEKONG DELTA?!?!?!?!? The food was great by the way but we were truly baffled at this random series of stops that somehow qualified as a tour. We ate the river fish and everything else they gave us, I planned to stay close to the bathroom for the rest of the day, then we set off on foot back to the boat that brought us in. They took us back to the car, which shuttled us back to the hotel leaving us to consider what we just experienced. New rule: NO MORE ORGANIZED TOURS!!!  (But here is our tasty riverfish anyway – it was the star attraction of the day):

Anywho, Saigon was actually pretty cool. Good restaurants, nice cafes, decent local beer (“333 Beer”) and not everyone seems to be trying to rip you off (Hanoi is basically the opposite – every cab driver tries to rob you blind and at stores they constantly short change you in the hopes that you won’t notice etc. – it gets really annoying). Only downside was our tour and maybe the giant rat I heard running across the ceiling all night at the hotel… Overall, we rank it higher than Hanoi.

We will definitely have to go back to Vietnam at some point and do it right. We just got a bit off track and couldn’t seem to get it going. We were so off track, I didn’t even manage to have a Bia Hoi, which is a local beer that is supposed to be not too bad and it costs less than ten cents a glass. (I know about eight of you reading this are booking tickets right now based solely on that last sentence.) But, as a Mets fan, I’m expert at saying, “Next time.”

So, here is the slide show in two parts – one for Hanoi, one for Saigon. One note: the pictures in the caves were almost all hand held in low light so they’re probably blurry – I don’t have a large screen so I can’t tell and I kept them all. Click the “i” in the middle of the pics to toggle the descriptions: 

Hanoi:  http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157605351771011/show/

Saigon:  http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157605676964789/show/

Next stop: Thailand (where we are currently experiencing relaxation nirvana)

When we arrived in Luang Prabang, it was dusk, the mountains were silhouetted against the setting sun and the air was filled with the sound of crickets.  We immediately started to feel the sleepy enchantment that hangs over this place. Think laid-back beach town transplanted to the banks of a muddy river. The little center of town is lined with restaurants and cafes and at night a market takes over and the main street is filled with red tents housing colorful silks, clothing and jewelry. Luang Prabang is the kind of place where you want to wile away the hours with a BeerLao at a bar overlooking the Mekong until its time for your massage (there are several spas right in town too).  And here is Ken doing just that (the beer is there, trust me):

However, Ken and I had other plans. We had signed up to volunteer for a week with an organization called GlobeAware (www.globeaware.org) which sets up travelers with short term volunteering opportunites in many different places around the world. We were up early the next morning to meet our guide and coordinator, Kelvin, ready to be put to work. Luckily for us, even volunteer work is on Lao time (kinda like island time). Kelvin revealed our itinerary for the week which included not only a few days building a gate at an orphange school and trips to a school and a village to donate books, but also a visit to a waterfall, a day of sight-seeing around town and a climb up a mountain to see the sunset. 

Our first charitable endeavor involved buying books at a store in town called Big Brother Mouse and donating them to a village school. The school enrolls students in six grades from 15 different villages, and some students walk up to two hours each way in order to get there. The facilities are basic and currently they have no library, but plan to build one. They have started a basic structure…(see picture below)…but Kelvin is hoping that he can lend a hand with a future GlobeAware group. Of course Ken and I immediately thought of the perfect person for this project, our good friend and master carpenter Bill Stugard — Stuggy, if you’re reading this, we need you in Laos so check your schedule. The cost to build a small library like this one is in total about $1500 – $2000. It could be cheaper if the school used raw materials available all over the countryside, but cutting trees requires a permit from the government that can take up to five years to obtain. Hopefully the project will be completed well before then.  Here is a pic of us at the school with the director standing in what he hopes will be a library one day:

From the school we headed to Kuangsi Waterfall, a multitiered cascade with several clear blue swimming pools. Ken was a bit under the weather, but Little Spree and I took a quick dip. Very refreshing! Here are some pics of us at the waterfall, I don’t think we have any of us swimming because our photographer was suffering an allergy attack. Some crazy dudes dove off the waterfall into the pool and lived to tell about it, but I talked Little Spree out of following in their footsteps. He’s a handful, that one.  This pic was taken at the largest waterfall:

And here is a smaller one:

On the ride home we passed several buffalo meandering down the road as well as a few geese and a couple of goats. Just par for the course here in Laos. Kelvin advised us to rest up because tomorrow we would start our big work project, the gate at the orphanage school.

However, the weather did not cooperate. We woke up to a complete downpour and electricity was out all over town. Electrical outages happen fairly regularly. So instead of starting work on the gate, we changed some locks on the classroom windows and doors. Or I should say Ken and Kelvin changed some locks and I intermittantly tested the locks and took pictures. Hey, somebody had to do the heavy lifting…

Fixing the locks:

Our gate project got of to a good start later in the afternoon after the electricity returned and by the next morning we were in full swing…well, actually, the students were in full swing…as you can tell by the pictures, these kids are ready to jump in and help at a moment’s notice, if you put down your paintbrush, suffice to say you will be taking a rather long break.  I took up supervising duties and chatted a bit with a student named Leja.  Her English was quite good, but perhaps I misunderstood her when I told her my age and she said with surprise ”You don’t look old but you are.”  Yeah, I am pretty sure something there got lost in translation.  Anyway, Leja’s story seemed to be typical of the students at the orphanage — she comes from a very small village and her family is very poor.  Her father was killed in a motorbike accident and sometime after she was sent to the orphanage school, although she has several other siblings that remain at home with her mother in the village.  She is fifteen and has lived at the school for seven years.  She told me that she likes it here and has many friends.  In fact, the students at the orphanage may be better off here than they are at home…Kelvin told us later that many children are sent here from rural, poor, single parent families because they will get a better education and have an oppotunity to study and better themselves, whereas back in the village the children have to spend time out in the fields farming in order to help support their families.  The students did seem remarkably well adjusted and well behaved — I wouldn’t expect a group of 20 teenagers to voluntarily spend their free time doing construction work, but the kids were there everyday helping us from start to finish.   Although the students appear well cared for, the Lao government provides the orphanage with only 1,000 kip, or about 11 cents, per student per day.  Because of this, the school relies a great deal on donations.  Our gate project is just one of many improvements that Kelvin has orchestrated with the help of volunteers.  Past groups built sinks with running water outside the dormitories, replaced doors and windows and even built and installed a basketball hoop.  Eventually, after three days, our gate was complete and I vowed next time to pack my nail gun (cause it turns out it’s really hard to hammer a nail straight — I left that to the kids who had it mastered).  I think this town could really use a Home Depot.  Here is Little Spree helping one of the kids cut some slots in the wood (yes, with a machette):

And a shot of me in my painting duties with Leja and another helper:

Our final activity with GlobeAware was perhaps my favorite, we sponsored a Book Party at a local village.  A Book Party is a concept thought up by Big Brother Mouse, a Lao organization that is dedicated to providing books to children in poor villages, often in remote locations.  The company writes and illustrates children’s books in English and Lao and with the help of donations organizes an event for the children in the village involving games, singing, storytelling and of course a gift of books — each child gets one and a surplus is donated to the village so that they can start a library.  The leaders of our Party were perhaps three of the most rambunctious college students you have ever met, San, Linda and Supin, who entertained us on the bumpy ride to the village by singing songs in Lao.  Here we are with the BBM crew:

In order to reach our village, we had to drive about an hour though the jungle on a bumpy dirt road, then hop on a boat and head about 20 minutes down the Mekong.  We passed some buffalo lounging in the water, and then arrived to a warm welcome of about 50 kids waving to us from the banks of the river.  The village was located up a long flight of stairs built into the hillside and when we got to the top San, Pin and Linda set to work handing out pencils and paper for the kids to draw on…Ken and I think there are some future Picassos in the group.  After drawing, the San one-man show began. Ken and I were kind of stupified because everything was happening in Lao, but all I know is that San had those kids singing, laughing, playing games and having an all around jolly good time, until suddenly Kelvin decided Ken and I should teach the kids some English…huh?!  So they all lined up in front of us ready for… the alphabet song!  Luckily for me I don’t care that much about sounding ridiculous in front of a bunch of Lao speaking children, so I gave it my best shot…Ken had a bit of stage fright, so decided to leave me out there singing while he took video and I am really hoping that one does not make it onto flickr, but anyway, the kids were game and I am pretty sure they will remember about as much as ABCD, after that who knows.  It was pretty funny to watch them trying to sing along, but when you’re up there you realize how ridiculous LMNOP sounds–not like separate letters at all.  Oh well, baby steps.  Anyway, after my moment in the spotlight, it was time for a snack, a story and the book distribution, which all went off without a hitch.   Here are the kids listening intently to stories:

Helping with activities:

Does it get any cuter than this?:

We were all ready then to pack up and go, when Kelvin told us that as a thank you the villagers were going to perform a blessing in our honor.  Here’s where things got really interesting.  Unbeknowst to us, we were about to take part in a Baasii ceremony, which is a traditional ceremony in Laos performed to invoke spirits of protection and good health.  The villagers brought out a centerpiece of flowers and fruit and we all held onto it with one hand while the villagers chanted the blessing.

Next the villagers came around and tied a piece of string around each of our wrists.  Now Ken and I thought at fist that you just get one piece of string and Ken said he was even trying to figure out which arm to offer up, but no, in fact each villager ties one piece of string around each arm, so you end up with an armful of string.

Ken going through the same ritual:

After the blessing, the villagers brought out a tray of food and some homemade whisky.  Evidently the rule is that you can eat just some of the food, but you have to drink all of the whiskey offered to you.  And even though no one in the village speaks English, everyone knows how to say “WhiskeyLao!” and delights in offering you many shots, which must be done in pairs!  The food consisted of breaded pig’s skin, omelette, papaya salad (which is spicier than hell), and sticky rice.  I have to hand it to Ken, who is usually a very picky eater, because he dug in with the rest of us…and yes, we were probably violating every bit of advice on what and where to eat while in SE Asia, but when an entire village cooks for you, it would be beyond bad manners to turn it down.  We took the Anthony Bourdain approach, accepted everything with a smile and hoped for the best.  It turned out to be quite delicious. 

With our feast complete and having downed a few too many shots of WhiskeyLao, it was time for the voyage back to Luang Prabang.  We were all exhausted and our rambunctious Big Brother Mouse crew actually fell asleep in the back of the jeep on the ride home.  Here is one of the kids chasing our boat on the way out:

So that is the jist of our time volunteering.  As I mentioned, we did also have a bunch of free time, and we spent some of it hanging out in town, eating Lao food (Little Spree in particular loved the river fish), drinking the fantastic BeerLao (unlike WhiskeyLao it is consumed one bottle at a time), and practicing some duets on Ken’s guitar.  All in all, Laos is a really beautiful and laid back place, definitely my favorite location thus far, and also the first where we didn’t see a McDonald’s, a Starbucks or a KFC, shocking!  When he’s not busy helping people, Kelvin leads mountain bike tours of the countryside and promised that next time we could head out to some even more remote places with no electricity where the view of the stars at night is incredible…any takers?  

Of course, this blog wouldn’t be complete without a picture of Kelvin so here he is with Supin at the book party.  Thanks Kelvin for your efforts and for showing us a slice of Laos!

 

Ok, so here is the slideshow – click the “i” in the middle of the pics for the descriptions:

http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157605274386777/show/

Next up, Vietnam…

Cambodia.  What to say about Cambodia?  It’s a tough one.  Their history is so thoroughly shocking that it’s a wonder they still exist as a country and a people.  At the same time, their smiles and friendly dispositions would have you think it was all something deep in their past even though the Khmer Rouge attrocities occurred so recently.  The country is insanely poor and in desperate need of help in almost every way imaginable.  It’s hard to not feel a little awkward being there as a tourist, especially given that by their standards almost every tourist is rich.  We were there for a week and hit three places.

Our first stop was the capital city, Phnom Penh.  As soon as we got off the airplane we knew we were in someplace different.  Our taxi sped toward our hotel along the main thoroughfare while motorscooters zipped in an out of traffic like nothing I’ve ever seen.  Hundreds of them all over the road like flies.  They pack things on them that I would guess you’d need a Humvee to move.  And the people load up as well.  We saw entire families on one moped – four or five people.  Here is a pic of a guy taking the kids out for a ride (helmets have not quite made it to this neck of the woods which is scary considering the way they drive):

 

The roadsides are pretty shabby as well.  None of this was entirely unexpected because the country is so poor but it still shocks you a little.  We booked our hotel the morning we arrived and had decided to splurge since we were only staying for two nights.  It was very odd to drive through town and see the general state of things, then suddenly arrive two blocks away at a true 5 star hotel (which only costs about $150 here).  It makes you very self-conscious and you feel more than a little guilty.  (Not that I wasn’t glad to be staying there…)  So for our only full day we decided to walk around the city.  First stop, about a quarter mile to a temple.  MISTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!  It was Hot.  I’m talking real hot.  Like, Cambodia Hot!  We made it to the temple, walked around for about ten minutes, watched a monkey attack a small child, went back to our 5-star hotel, jumped in the pool and ordered some Angkor Beer!  (Krysten deals better with the heat than I do presumably due to my extra, um, insulation.)  We stayed there until about 2pm when the sun wasn’t as bad.  Here I am roughing it at the pool:

 

We hired a tuk tuk driver (motorcycle with a cart attached to it) to take us to see the Killing Fields “museum”.  He drove us out there but stopped before we reached our destination.  He suddenly transformed into an impromptu tour guide.  He told us about life for his family under the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot (and his successors), about having next to nothing to eat, how all the intellectuals were killed, monuments were destroyed, art, literature and any sign of culture was abolished.  Figures vary but all told it’s estimated that a few million people were killed (and it was generally a brutal way to go).  It’s absolutely amazing that this happened in the 1970s. 

After talking with our driver, we went on to the Killing Fields.  It’s not a place for the faint of heart.  In the center is a monument where those killed are remembered.  It is basically filled with skulls from the victims and at the bottom it has the clothes they were buried in.  The entire place is filled with holes about 20′x20′ which were the mass graves which have been excavated.  The scale of it is pretty disturbing and they haven’t unearthed a large portion of them.  In any event, it was obviously not a happy tourist attraction type of event but one that makes you think about what kind of lunatics mankind is capable is producing.  The Killing Fields:

We spent the rest of the day with our driver who took us around Phnom Penh and became our quasi-tour guide.  We mostly checked out the scenery and relaxed.  There are lots of buildings that look a bit like this government building which looks cool with the storm rolling in:

And here is a shot of an elephant going to a restaurant (literally – he gives rides during the day but at night the company let’s him roam free in the city so he hangs out by the restaurants because they tend to give him food):

Our next stop was Sihanoukville on the southern coast.  Sinhoukville is a beach town so there really isn’t much to report about it.  We went to the beach, and basically relaxed for a few days.  Fifty cent beers and lunch for about $2.  Yipee!  Here is a shot of the beach in one direction:

And here is a shot in the other direction:

Sweet, eh?  Very few people around if you know where to go and our hotel was owned by a guy from Seattle who told us exactly where to go…

Last stop, Angkor Wat.  Angkor Wat is simply fantastic.  For those not already in the know, it is in Siem Reap and it is basically a huge area filled with temples from ancient Cambodia.  Some are in ruins and some are remarkably preserved.  We hired a guide to take us through and explain what we were looking at (for Krysten – she didn’t know – my Cambodian history is spot on).  The temples were amazing!  I can’t imagine the work that went into building them.  The detail you’ll see in the pictures is everywhere – sometimes seemingly on every stone you can see.  If you’re ever in Southeast Asia, I think this is the must see attraction.  Here is a pic of the main temple, Angkor Wat:

And here is a shot of one of the temples with the trees sort of, well, taking over (it’s a big problem because they grow right up through the temples in some places):

We spent a day and a half there and then, on the advice of our guide, went to take a boat out on a nearby lake.  The boat took us out through a river (after breaking down for a while) onto the lake where we were shocked to see people living in “houses” on the lake.  No, not on the water’s edge, but way out in the middle of the actual lake (which is pretty big).  Some are on what look like boats and others are in houses built on rafts.  It’s pretty incredible.  They even have extra rafts tied on where they keep their pigs and livestock.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  Here is one of the houses (this was the whole house – some are bigger as you’ll see in the slideshow):

And here is a kid that paddles around in a big bowl and grabs onto the side of your boat.  He drags along the side and says something unintelligible as long as he can hold on and eventually falls away.  We didn’t figure out until afterward that he was asking for money which I think is why he looks a little disappointed.

So, that’s the highlight tour of our Cambodia trip.  All-in-all, we both really liked Cambodia.  It’s hard to not like the place because the people are so friendly and they really grow on you.  We had drivers giving us history lessons, a teen worker at the Sinhoukville guesthouse who has been taken by US hip-hop culture (right down to his NY Yankee fake diamond spinning belt buckle and his sudden bursts of rpping and dancing), and our tour guide in Siem Reap who clearly wants better times for his country (as I’m sure they all do).  They are extremely poor, have a horrible history, and a corrupt government that isn’t cutting them any breaks.  If you aren’t connected, you aren’t going anywhere over here (we were told at one point that college was way too expensive [even at $500 US per year] but even with a college degree if you’re not connected to someone in the government you might get a low paying job at a hotel or something at best).  So we’re left hoping against hope that things improve over here and that maybe tourist dollars and exposure to the rest of the world will help move things along, however slowly.

Apologies to all if this entry is a little bit of a downer at times.  More upbeat ones to come (I hope)…  In the meantime, here are the slideshow links – one for Phnom Penh / Sihanoukville and the other for Siem Reap.  The Siem Reap one is pretty long because we shot tons of pics at the temples.  You may want to click the slideshow manually to speed it up in parts.  As always, click the “i” in the center of the pics for titles and descriptions.

 http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157605257399566/show/

http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157605257462418/show/

Next up, our week volunteering in Laos (which I think Krysten has already written so it should be ready in short order)… 

Well, we were supposed to go to Shanghai from Chengdu but our visits to the countryside convinced us that our time would be better spent away from the cities. So, on the trusty advice of our guide in Chengdu, Mr. Lee, we decided to head to Yunnan province and see what it had to offer. Our base of operations would be Old Town in Lijiang. Old town is a section of Lijiang where no cars are allowed and the town is either preserved or rebuilt (can never tell which in China) as it was long ago. It has been transformed somewhat as there are many bars, restaurants and shops and there is a distinctly Tibetan flavor about the whole place. Here is what Old Town looks like (all of it – block after block like this):

And here is one more quick shot at night:

It was really great to get away from the big cities in China. Lijiang is pretty laid back and while there are many shops the owners do not agressively pursue sales like they do in most of China. You are free to peruse the wares and buy or not without being verbally assaulted. Capitalism the way it was meant to be…

Our first night there we were lost in the rain (starting to become a theme) but Krysten whipped out her trusty compass necklace and saved the day. We were pretty close to our hotel which we had booked only for the first night (we didn’t know what we were going to do or how long we would stay) when we met Mimi. Mimi is from Beijing but currently runs a guesthouse in Old Town and has spent a fair amount of time living abroad – including in the US. That means perfect english (although many people in Lijiang speak at least some English). It was a good break as she was able to lead us the rest of the way to the hotel. She also mentioned that she ran a guesthouse and it only cost $10 per night. Sounded like a bargain and it was. We switched the next day. What we didn’t know was that we were not only getting the room but Mimi’s personal attention as well. You’ll see her a lot in the pictures as she practically became our traveling companion for the time we spent there.

Our next night may have been our best. She took us out to a restaurant along with three others from the guesthouse. We went to a local market area which was a little sketchy looking and walked through the back of the stalls until we came upon what looked to me like a warehouse. We went inside and discovered a packed house. There is no way we would’ve ever walked into this place without local representation to help establish our street cred. Like I said, it didn’t look like any restaurant I’ve ever been in but we had our ace in the hole Mimi who waxed poetic about how much we would like it so I figured, when in Rome… The restaurant interior:

This was a hotpot restaurant so there are about eight people crowded around each pot which contains boiling water – almost like a stew. On top is a pile of pork ribs (or whatever else the table ordered) and underneath are veggies. You also get a cart on the side filled with other veggies and things to throw in as well as some rice. As is my new ritual, I steeled my stomach with beer and dug in. Fantastic. We had some difficulty working the chopsticks which always causes a fair amount of giggling but all-in-all it was a great meal. It’s great to have someone like Mimi show you where all the good stuff is. For six people, the whole meal cost less than $15 including beers. Sweeeeeeeet!!!!!!!! It occurred to me then that locals not only know where the good stuff is but they pay much less. Here we are chowing down:

After dinner, we went to Mimi’s favorite watering hole and drank until the wee hours. We met more people there than I can remember, very few of them could speak english. There were oodles of performers there mostly in the vein of Tibetan Boy-Bands. It was one of those places that you wouldn’t believe unless you saw it. I personally think it tops the all-japanese bands, all-beatles covers, all the time place. We managed to befriend a group of Tibetans that I think were there on vacation. Tibetans have a habit of spontaneously breaking out into song so we went with it and drank beer and listened to what sounded like Tibetan folk songs for the rest of the night. Krysten was apparently the better singer because they gave her a TIbetan name – Da wa zhuo ma (I can’t put in all the accents on here but it pronounced like “Dow uh zoo mah” I think). It means something like nighttime fairy princess or young jubilent spirit or something (“Da wa” meaning moon and the rest meaning fairy lady). We were also tested again by the entire group when someone brought peanuts to the table – we were forced to eat ours with chopsticks to work on our skills. We really need help. In any event, I think we represented the Americans well as our table was going strong long after closing until they basically gave us the boot. Here is Krysten singing with the Tibetans and Mimi:

We spent the next couple of days seeing the countryside. We spent a day on horseback riding around the mountainside and through some small (very small) villages. When I say “ride” I mean Mimi, Krysten and our new Tibetan friend from the bar (who we invited to come along and were pleasantly surprised when he accepted) rode and I strapped my horse to his. He has a farm in Tibet with horses so I figured I was in good hands. Besides, the horses over here are small so the fall wouldn’t be too far… It was a great ride – the countryside was full of massive green fields being farmed by hand and was surrounded by huge mountain ranges. The pictures can’t convey how huge it all is – here we are on the hoses:

We also managed to get up to Tiger Leaping Gorge for a day with other friends of Mimi’s from the guesthouse. They are from Finland and may have just talked us into a side trip up there before this thing is finished. Tiger Leaping Gorge is one of those places that is unbelieveably scenic. Here is a pic from the gorge – one tiny part of it (goes on for a long way):

The hardest thing about writing this blog is picking what things to write about. We were in Lijiang for almost a week so there’s lots more to tell but this is getting long already so I’m going to stop here. I’ll let the pictures do the rest. The link is below. A quick warning, there are lot’s of them because at certain places like Tiger Leaping Gorge we snapped away and I haven’t had time to pare them down. I think there are 300. Click the “i” in the middle of the pics for the titles and descriptions.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157604947918560/show/

One more note – we are skipping Hong Kong since we were only there for a day. Suffice it to say that we kicked back, ate some steak, drank some wine and resolved to come back when we have more time to spend. So that about does it for China. I think we’re ready for a change of pace and can’t wait for a couple of days on the beach. Here is the last pic of me in China taken at the hotel the night we were packing up – do I look like I’m ready for the beach?

And finally, Krysten trying to leave the hotel and getting mauled by Mimi’s three dogs, “Little Bear”, “Too Much”, and “Flower, Flower” (they sound normal in Chinese):

Next up, Cambodia!

EDITORIAL NOTE:  For those that have sent emails and for anyone else still wondering, we are not in Chengdu and were not there for the earthquake.  We are still catching up on the blogs (almost there) and are currently in Cambodia.  Our hearts go out to the people suffering from the tragedy and we pray that the people we met in Chengdu and their families are safe.  The following was written before the earthquake:

In the Beijing aiport while waiting to board our flight to Chengdu, Ken and I met some random guy who was in China on business and he recommended that we get out of the big Chinese cities and into the countryside to see another view of China. Sounds great, but given that we could not even get a taxi in Beijing and after our trip to the Great Wall another organized tour just did not seem very appealing, I was skeptical that we could manage such a feat unless one of us was suddenly possessed with the ability to speak fluent Mandarin. Luckily for us, we found Mr. Lee, tour guide extraordinaire, who would totally change our trip to China. Actually, he found us in the People’s Park in Chengdu, a place where alot of retirees gather to dance, do areobics, drink tea and play mah jong. Ken and I were wandering through and took a break to check out our trusty Lonely Planet Guidebook, when a local Chengdu resident/tour guide, Mr. Lee, came over and started speaking to us in English. Apparently, this Chinese man speaking English to two westerners (we are kind of a novelty– we had several people in Beijing ask to take pictures with us) peaked the curiosity of people walking through the park and during our conversation many people walked right up next to us and just stood there listening from about two feet away like it was something they had never seen before.  Anyway, Mr. Lee suggested that we take a tour of the countryside the following day and we signed-up right on the spot.

First stop: the local market. Now, Chengdu is a big, modern city, but you can head about a half hour out of the city and be in totally different world. Mr. Lee likes the off the beaten path experience, and so he took us to a village market where they do not get many (any?) tourists. We hopped out of the car to take a look at the local products…first up, pork fat…the people selling this thought it was really funny that we took a picture of it.

Next, Mr. Lee stopped to enjoy a local delicacy — boiled pig’s blood. He said it was good for digestion, or maybe circulation, who knows, I was distracted by the fact that he was eating pigs blood!  They boil it and it coagulates or something and forms a brown mass.  He said he eats it all the time, so it was really no big deal…

We wandered down the dusty winding streets and realized you can pretty much buy anything at this market — nuts, fruit, meat (pick your cut), chicken and ducks (sold whole with the head still attached), clothing, alcohol, rugs, hats — you name it. You can even get physical therapy, a haircut, or go to the dentist — right there on the side of the road.  Here is a shot of the local dentist (Ken is rethinking his position on universal healthcare) – the lady on the left was getting worked on:

And here is a shot of the motorized meat cart – who needs an ice cream truck?

The market happens every other day, so you can definitely catch it next time you are in Chengdu.

Mr. Lee took us to a variety of places after the market, each was more interesting than the next. We saw a hat making operation, basically one guy sewing together reams of braided straw into the shape of a hat with a woman in a back room pressing them into shape on a machine. I bought a hat for 3 yuan (about 45 cents). We stopped in a local restaurant for lunch where I tried a dish of fermented eggs — we saw this being made at the market — take an egg and cover it in mud and wood chips, let it sit for 10 days and then voila! it is ready to eat. It tasted kind of like a hard boiled egg, but the whites were clear and gelatinous. We drove through miles of farmland that is all tilled, sown and harvested by hand (suddenly my job at S&C didn’t seem so bad after all!) and stopped in a farmer’s thatched roof open air house (no one was home but a barking dog so we didn’t stay long). Our favorite stop was to the local potter’s where three guys were churning out an amazing number of handmade pots of all different sizes with tremendous skill and apparent ease. Ken wanted to recruit some of them to come back to the States and open a shop. They could definitely make more than the 100 yuan (about $15) per pot they were asking in China.  Here is one of them hard at work:

Our final stop before heading back to Chengdu was a town meeting that we came upon by chance. The local farmers were discussing whether to plant fruit trees or grow crops. But the meeting came to a complete halt when we got out of the car and everyone stopped listening to the speaker and started trying to figure out who we were. They were very friendly and gave us stools to sit on. We did have a strange moment when a local government official stopped by and started questioning Mr. Lee about our presence and pointing at Ken’s camera, but in the end I think he also was just curious and the meeting eventually continued. Mr. Lee called it Chinese democracy in action!  Here is the town meeting after everyone got back to it:

(A quick note from Ken:  Krysten left out one very important stop where I was given ancient chinese advice.  We stopped in an old age home in a tiny village.  The ladies in the home were eager to chat but the men were more or less looking on from a distance.  It was there that I was given the secrets to being a good husband and to forming a lasting marriage.  What is the great secret you ask?  Here it is:  The man must always keep his mouth shut and let the woman do the talking.  Hmmm.  Krysten doesn’t speak Chinese but I’m guessing that somehow she told them to say that…)

The following day we attended the traditional Sichuan opera, again with Mr. Lee, so we were the only tourists in the audience and probably the only two people under 60.  The theater had an off off broadway feel and was supported by one local woman.  Apparently, the traditional form is losing ground to the more flamboyant form performed in theaters catering to tourists and the actors performing in the local theater do it as a labor of love.  Mr. Lee translated the stories for us, one of which was banned from performance during Mao’s regime because it was critical of the government.  At first, we were apprehensive about Mr. Lee translating for us, thinking that he would disturb the rest of the audience, but no worry because the audience just went right on talking and carrying on after the curtain went up.  They also served tea during the performance — great idea!  These actors have tremendous concentration, an errant cellphone ring is the least of their concern.   Here is shot of one of the actors (we were told she was well known locally – anyone recognize her?):

After spending time with Mr. Lee we realized that there is so much to see in China outside of the big cities and we thought we would be missing out if we just continued on to Shanghai, so we took his recommendation and headed instead to Lijiang in Yunnan province. And that turned out to be a great adventure! So thanks Mr. Lee!

Here is the slideshow for Chengdu.  Just a general note – we have two cameras so the pictures seem like they start repeating in a couple of spots because we took similar pictures but keep going and you’ll see that they are different.  As always, click the “i” in the middle of the pictures to toggle the titles and descriptions on and off.

http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157604950987055/show/

 

Ahhh…Beijing in springtime…Well, sort of…

We arrived in Beijing in the spring. That much is true. However, the warm spring air was slightly less than optimal as the city was experiencing a few “bad days” with respect to pollution. It sort of sits on the city on a bad day like a dense fog. To worsen matters the city is going through a period of intense construction in anticipation of the upcoming olympic games. I’m certain it will be spectacular when it’s finished but for me it means dust, dust and most of all dust. My allergies were driving me nuts.

But, relief was on the way and before we knew it we were saved, sort of, by driving rains. It seemed to knock the dust from the sky and even deal a blow to the mighty veil of pollution blanketing the city. I love a rainy night. Eddie Rabbit said that. The only downside to it is obviously the constant presence of rain. But I’ll take it.  Here is Krysten braving the rains at the Ming Tombs:

Anyway, on to the trip. After I exhausted Krysten with my whining about the dust on our first day we decided that we would walk from our hotel over to Tiannenman Square for a looksee. Bad move. You don’t walk anywhere in Beijing. It is HUGE! The scale of everything is amazing. We walked for about ten minutes straight before we reacxhed the end of the street our hotel was on. I explained to Krysten that I didn’t know what was wrong because it was only like an inch on the map! Well, we quickly learned to take taxis and subways everywhere (we had some trouble getting taxis and did a lot of walking anyway but we eventually figured out the system).

Tiannenman Square was impressive – the largest public square in the world we were told. There is an Army presence across the street in front of the gate to the Forbidden City. The guidebook also says there are closed circuit monitors and plain clothes police ready to pounce on any sign of protest/demonstration. I have no idea if that’s true or not but it drives the point home that things are slightly different over here. The army presence appears to be for show as much as anything else though. Here is a pic of someone in front of the gate to the Forbidden City with Mao in the background:

 

And here is the same guy shot from behind with Tiannenman Square in the background.

 

(Side Note:  I must’ve been off my game that day because they both look slightly crooked.  I guess that’s why they made Photoshop…)

The Forbidden City was next on the agenda. I expected a few temple like buildings and a garden or something – in and out in two hours max. Nope. It’s gigantic. I think you could really spend a few days exploring the place if you wanted to. I snapped tons of photos but the lighting was terrible (still in the bad weather days) so many didn’t come out too great. I kept some anyway so feel free to peruse the slideshow at your leisure…

We were cooking with gas at this point and then the wheels came off when we decided to join a tour group to get to the Great Wall since it is outside the city and Krysten left her Chinese driver’s license at home. (Sometimes I wonder about her.) We decided to go to one recommended by the guidebook. We walked and walked to find this place. It was absolutely pouring rain, I had a cold and I was miserable. But I figured the guidebook recommended this place so it must be good. Well, we found it and bought our tickets. They told us the bus would leave at 10am so get there early. It was again raining and crappy out the next morning but we got there around 9:30 to make sure we caught the last bus at 10. No such bus. The only bus was leaving at 10:30. Not the end of the world but the terminal was too stinky to stand in so we waited outside until the bus was ready to go at around 10:45. We get on, it’s stuffy and the music is blaring. I mean loud and shrieky and pushing the tiny tin can sounding speakers to the limits. We asked for the volume to be turned down and they said ok but never did. Shortly after we started driving they turned off the music and replaced it with a tour guide explaining everything we passed and what we would be doing and seeing and how dandy everything would be. At least, I’m assuming that’s what she said because the tour was entirely in Chinese (but luckily it was extremely loud). So basically we knew nothing about what was going on. I thanked the lord for IPods and cranked mine to the hilt and tuned out.

After driving for an hour or so I looked out the window to see the Ming Tombs (the emperors of the Ming dynasty are buried there) which was the other attraction we were headed to see. This should be interesting. Then I watched as we went right past the Ming Tombs. Hmmm. We turned into a crappy roadside aea clearly set up strictly for tourists as the only thing there was a gaggle of tour buses. We were informed that we should be upstairs for lunch in 45 minutes and until then we should visit the jade “museum”. We walked through and saw a few pieces of jade with some historical notes in display cases and then pass through a doorway into jade-hell. About 30 counters (at least) selling jade necklaces, statues, bracelets, ornaments, buddahs, etc. The whole stop was clearly designed to get a bunch of people to buy jade which shockingly was not shown on the itinerary. Oddly enough, while Krysten and I pondered what we had gotten ourselves into and what buying jade had to do with the Great Wall, the rest of the group ate it up and spent small fortunes snapping up jade. To each his own I suppose.

We decided to head to lunch upstairs. When we went into the room where lunch was to be served we saw some people from our bus and decided to head over and try awkwardly to introduce ourselves. Our efforts were quickly defeated when the waitresses gathered around us, blocked our pathway with smiles and hand gestures too polite to refuse and whisked us away to an empty table in the corner. That was odd. Then the only two people on the bus that spoke english entered the room and saw us by ourselves so they tried to sit with us. The waitress gestapo saw this egregious offense and swept into action immediately. They abruptly told our visitors something we didn’t understand (obviously) and had them move to the other table where all the chinese people ate. We ended up eating the entire meal by ourselves at a table that seats about ten while everyone else sat about six tables away from us (and frequently looked at us while talking). Talk about awkward. I thought we had contracted leprosy and nobody had the heart to tell us. In retrospect, I think the reason they did this was for our own protection. I think the food they serve to the chinese is about a billion times hotter than what we get and that’s how they keep track since everyone at a table eats from the same dish in China. So, maybe the waitress gestapo saved our lives – or at least our stomachs.

So after lunch we hit the Ming Tombs which was ok but somewhat uneventful. After that we were on to the Great Wall. Unfortunately, by the time we got there we had wasted so much time with jade and lunch etc. that we had to rush to get up to the wall before it closed. Luckily we made it and it was, to quote Richard Nixon, a great wall. A brilliant speaker he was… It’s pretty unbelievable that they actually built this thing when they did (although the wall that is there today is a reconstruction). Anyway, there were a few other oddities there like the massive number of people trying to sell you things and a bunch of pens with black bears in them which we didn’t quite understand, but we managed to see the wall and get back to the bus in time so our primary goal was satisfied.  The Great Wall:

We spent a day at the Summer Palace as well which was great. Maybe the best day in Beijing. The sun was out and it was clear. I didn’t have to chew the air to breathe it. The Summer Palace is another one of those places that you think will be smaller than it is. There are a boatload of pics in the slideshow from there. We met a local student there who wanted to practice his english so he showed us around, gave us the history of many of the things we saw in the palace and we spent the day discussing China and getting a perspective from someone who lives there. We invited him to dinner where the conversation continued and he showed us naive americans how to eat Peking Duck. I’m not a fan of duck but this was some good stuff. Meeting the people has become the activity that is by far the most rewarding. Unfortunatelyl, it’s difficult in China when you don’t speak chinese…

I think the only other major attraction we saw was the Temple of Heaven. I’m still not sure exactly what it was but it was interesting nonetheless. We didn’t spend a lot of time there because it is all outside and it was raining again. Here is a pic of Little Spree taking stock of the Temple grounds:

Anyway, that’s about it for Beijing. All in all our impression of Beijing was mixed. Some good, some not so good. But in the end, it was worth the visit to see the historic sights and for the people we met.

Here is the slideshow – click the ï”in the middle of the pictures for titles and descriptions:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157604951023511/show/

Next stop – Chengdu…

          We’re back online!!!  Yippee!!!  We have tons to report since we’ve been censored for the last couple of weeks in China (we’re in Hong Kong now preparing for Cambodia tomorrow) and we’ve had limited internet access to send posts to our surrogate blogger McMahon (thanks for your efforts Mac).  Rather than put it all out there in one big post, we’re sticking to one post per destination until we catch up – which should be relatively quickly.  In the meantime, if you scroll down to the last paragraph in the Kyoto post below you’ll see that we’ve added the pics for Kyoto.  And now for Osaka…

          This will be a short one because we were only in Osaka for one day.  We did, however, learn before going that Osakans actually have a word, “Kuidaore,” which basically means to eat and drink until you drop (dead I think).  Immediately I realized that these were good people.  We arrived midday and had a flight the next morning so time was short.  We did what anyone else would do in that situation.  Laundry.  We’re gone for a really long time so we figured that we owed it to all the other passengers on the flight to Beijing.  It left us little time so we figured that Osaka would be a bust.  We struck out for a quick bite and stumbled upon a sweet restaurant which specialized in Okonomiyaki which is sort of like a pancake topped with everything.  Yes, everything.  Ours had pork, shrimp, cuttlefish, beef, numerous veggies, mayo, teriyaki sauce, eggs, and I don’t know what else.  This was another occasion where we were only vaguely aware of what we ordered and couldn’t ask (no english speakers and we appeared to be the only non-locals in the place [which always makes the experience better for some reason]).  Here is a pic of me waiting and looking a bit skeptical as the chef works away in the background:

Luckily for me, as you can see, I have an appropriately sized huge beer.  Here is a pciture of me, Krysten and the final product:

And a closeup:

I know what you’re thinkin’ (I told you they put everything on it).  But I gotta tell ya, it was nothing short of Awesome!  I think I had a tongue-gasm!  I’m the last person in the world who would eat something that looks like this (I hate mayo and don’t eat much fish besides the fact that I don’t mix foods together too much) but it’s great.  NY-ers:  find this thing now.  Someplace has to make it in the big apple.

Anyway, our night was unfortunately cut short due to our early morning flight to Beijing the next day so we didn’t get to eat and drink ’til we dropped but at least we had something very “Osakan”.  (Side note:  Osakans also love Takoyaki which is octopus fried up in balls of dough with sauce or veggies etc. which we had in Kyoto [Krysten ate them - I just tased them] and they were great.  Also, Krysten liked the Okonomiyaki but slightly less than I did.)

Anywho, on to Beijing.  Here is a very brief Osaka slideshow – click the “i” in the middle of the pics to toggle the descriptions.

http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157604724546097/show/

        So we arrive in Kyoto in the pouring rain and we can’t find our hotel.  I am pretty sure at this point that somehow it is Ken’s fault (I have since forgiven him…for whatever it was).  My backpack weighs about 10,000 pounds and I realize that if we can only find our hotel, I will need to dump about half my stuff if I am going to carry this thing throughout the trip.  When we finally check in, we have a smoking room and try to clear the air by turning on the air purifier, which is also a humidifier, and only has instructions in Japanese and, shortly, our room is the climate of the Amazon rain forest.  Yay, I am really loving Kyoto.  I begin to fantasize about fleeing Japan for Bali where I will check into the Four Seasons and spend our remaining yearly budget in a matter of hours…but oh it will be glorious…        Luckily the next day we change hotels (this was prearranged) and although our new room is small and stuffy, at least it is a dry heat.  We spend the evening wandering around Gion (the geisha district) and catch a geisha rushing to an appointment.  We  have a Japanese meal and wander down a canal lined with restaurants and bars.  Kyoto, as it turns out, has a few charms.  Although the city itself on first glance is rather gray, grimy, crowded and full of traffic, if you take the time to explore you will find pockets of serene beauty.  We walk down Philospher´s Path, which is a canal lined with cherry trees in bloom, visit immaculately groomed temple grounds and wander through a bamboo forest.  (My technical director will insert some lovely pictures of cherry blossoms here…)

Here are a couple from Philosopher’s Path:

       

      Of course we are again entirely astounded and grateful at the immense hospitality of the Japanese people.  A random man on the subway platform catches us staring at the map and comes up and asks if he can help us.  Would this happen in NY… doubtful.  Ken and I repeatedly encounter people who tell us regretfully that they do not speak English, only then to speak to us in English, leading Ken to surmise that when someone here says that they do not speak English it means they can only have a conversation and cannot write a dissertation.  I cannot say enough about how great the locals are to tourists.

        We decide one night to stop for a drink on the way home from dinner and end up in a bar in an alleyway off an alleyway.  The bar, Dragonfly, shares the name of my favorite bar in D.C., so we take it as a sign and go in.  Here Ken and I tuck into a corner and watch the regulars who buy a bottle and store it at the bar.  We were rather impressed with ourselves for outlasting everyone else (maybe because it was a Tuesday night).  Our bartender was perhaps the most precise and deliberate drinkmaker in the world…literally she would choose each ice cube and arrange them in the glass and would stir each drink with one of those fancy stirrers that you might buy for show and never use.  The place was tiny and cozy and I think if we stayed a few more nights in Kyoto we might have had a bottle kept for us behind the bar.

        On our last night, we partake in Kaiten or conveyer belt sushi…the sushi passes by you on a conveyer belt and if you want it, you just pick it up and take it.  The sushi is arranged by price on color coded plates, so at the end of your meal the waitress tallies up your plates and gives you a tab.  So efficient and delicous!

        All in all, I think Kyoto is a city with many secrets that it will only reveal to the persistent visitor.  If you make your way past the cosmopolitan and gritty exterior, there are many treasures for one to discover.  We had time for only a few…

                Next stop…Osaka…land of “eat yourself to death”…man I love that town…

        At long last, here is the link to the Kyoto pictures.  Warning, they are probably 90% temples and cherry blossoms so don’t expect any miracles.  Click the “i” in the middle of the pics to toggle the descriptions on and off (although many don’t have a description beyond “temple” or “cherry blossom”. 

http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157604561200829/show/

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Chinese authorities have seen fit to block access to our blog site as well as our Flickr account.  I think it is because the site is basically a press outlet and the Flickr account is sort of the same.  Our friend Mac has graciously agreed to post on our behalf for the time being but posts will be pictureless because we will be sending posts via email.  The site blocking is somewhat inconsistent over here so it’s unclear how long we will be operating like this but we will update the posts with pictures when we get access – shouldn’t be more than one to two weeks but may be sooner.  We have Kyoto, Osaka and are working on Beijing so they should be up shortly.

A quick supplement to the Tokyo post based on the comments and emails I’ve received.  Shockingly, I’ve been asked more than once about the Beer Museum.  Says something about our readership – something good.  But there is a reason I didn’t expand on it – The Beer Museum was probably great but it was 100% in Japanese with no translations so we didn’t understand any of it.  Well, we actually understood one thing – 4 different beers for $4!  There was a tasting lounge at the end and that’s where Little Spree got his drink on as you can see here:

The beer on the far right was my personal favorite – sort of a Guinness knockoff with a coffee-like kick (not sure my description sounds great but it was good).  It’s called “Yebisu - The Black”.  New Yorkers – go find one.  The lightest one I can’t remember the name of (but I’ll try to get it)  but it is a lager sort of like a Hoegaarden White Beer, slightly less white, with a little bit of a lemon/orange taste.  The other two were good but slightly generic – not worth going through the effort of finding one.

So, that’s the Beer Museum.  If you Wikipedia Sapporro or Yebisu and Beer Museum you’ll probably get lots more.  I promise to be more descriptive about the beer we encounter in our travels going forward.  Bad oversight on my part.  In fact, I think I’ll start the beer page soon.

Oh yeah, to McMahon, there are no apartments to rent in the Beer Museum.  Sorry.  

The Kyoto blog is in progress – should be up in a day or two.

Well, we’ve made it through our first week abroad and all is well.  Our first four days were in Tokyo.  It was generally on the cold side and raining almost every day which was a bummer but lo and behold we managed to have a good time anyway.  On our first day we took in some Kabuki Theater (here is a link explaining what that is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabuki) which was very cool (I was skeptical) and we hit the Tsukiji Fish Market.  The fish market is where the day’s catch comes in to Tokyo and they auction it off every morning.  You can walk around as we did and see what appears to be every type of creature that lives in the ocean.  The place is massive. 

 

We managed to miss the auction (which I hear is a sight in and of itself) but we did manage to get our first sushi breakfast at the market.  For those of you that don’t know my eating habits, let’s just say that I am super picky.  Krysten, on the other hand, is the adventurer (sort of a pattern with us – she being the adventurer).  We took the advice of friends and looked for the sushi restaurant with the longest line in front of it.  Seemed like a good idea – after all, the people must be waiting for something, right?  And we were starving so we wanted the good stuff.  Well, after about an hour of standing in the cold rain outside the restaurant we decided that new advice was in order, so we struck off to find another restaurant and asked one of the fish market shop owners.  He said the best restaurant was the oldest one at the market – it’s been in operation for over 160 years.  Awesome! Where is it? Well, we just left it…  Perfect. 

Standing outside the Sushi Restaurant with hot tea:

So the original advice was right but we figured we’d look like idiots if we went back so he gave us another recommendation.  We walked to the other restaurant and guess what…another line.  This time we waited it out and, eventually, we get in and sit down at the bar ready to gorge ourselves.  The sushi chef hands us a menu, says something to us we don’t understand, and smiles as we respond with our secret weapon, the blank stare (more on this later).  We look at the menu, he takes it back from us and starts putting food on our plate.  Thing is, we never ordered.  I think he got tired of waiting.  First up, Tuna.  Perfect – I can do that.  Tastes awesome.  Next up, hmmmm… I will eventually recognize this as shrimp but not right away because, in the States, shrimp at a sushi restaurant is (i) cooked, and (ii) not moving.  Now, I assure you it was dead – no head, no shell, no legs, perfectly clean – but the damn thing was twitching (briefly – but definitely twitching).  Must be some sort of post-morten muscle spasm or something.  I like my food fresh but not so fresh it fights back.  But, in order to not disappoint the chef (I’m a people pleaser – what can I say) or to look like an amateur I looked at the grey mass and did what any real man would do – I told Krysten to eat hers first and describe it.  She dug in with gusto and didn’t fall dead so I followed suit. It was actually pretty decent.  So this became our modus operandi: something would hit the plate, I would stare at it, Krysten would eat it and not fall dead, so I would eat it and find that it was actually good.  Maybe it’s all in my head but I think the chef was enjoying the fact that although we cleary had no idea what we were eating and I was clearly freaked out, we were downing it all with glee.  As I said, I’m super picky and for many of you this would’ve been a non-event – just another sushi meal, albeit a great one.  For me, it had the potential to be something to discuss in therapy later in life.  All in all, it was the best sushi I’ve ever had.  The problem is that only about 20% of it was recognizable so I can’t ask for any of it again.

A quick note about the blank stare.  We have found in our travels that you don’t need to learn to speak any foreign languages if you master the art of the “blank stare.” Here’s how it works – you walk in to a restaurant, boutique, whatever, and wait for someone to approach you and ask you something which you will definitely not understand.  You smile, look directly at them, then at each other, then back at the inquisitor, and repeat.  It helps to open your mouth a little to give the impression that you want to say something but you are a mute.  This will inevitably lead to the inquisitor trying their hand at english or pointing at various options, showing you pictures etc.  In NY of course, this will get you thrown out or ridiculed or both, but in other countries it works like a charm and I highly recommend it.

Anyway, we spent the rest of the day and the next aimlessly wandering around Tokyo with a serious case of jetlag before meeting up with two friends, Sapna and Michelle.  The five of us (including Little Spree) managed to wind our way through numerous neighborhoods, meals and metro stations.  Oddly enough, in retrospect I’m not sure we ate a Japanese meal together – I recall Chinese, Korean, American (in a Cuban restaurant no less) and miscellaneous (meaning my memory sucks).  We hit the major areas like Shibuya (shopping), Harajuku (sort of like Greenwich Village), and Ropoongi (nightlife center), roamed some gardens (Imperial Palace – although you don’t get to see the actual palace which is weird – and the park in Ueno), hit the Tokyo National Museum, drank at the Beer Museum (sans Sapna and Michelle) and generally did some major people watching.  I don’t think I would do them justice to try to describe the people so I’m not going to try.  I think you have to come over to see it.

I would be remiss if I wrote about Tokyo without mentioning a place called Abbey Road which in my opinion is making musical history – all-Japanese bands, all-Beatles covers, all the time.  Simply magical.  No photos allowed during the performances but here is a picture of Little Spree in front of the Fab 4 sculpture on the wall:

 

All in all I would rank Tokyo among my top cities which I would live in.  It’s very clean, low crime and the people are so nice it’s ridiculous.  If you look confused they will come to your rescue.  The shop owner that made the sushi recommendation saw us walking by and yelled out to us to see if we wanted help.  He never tried to sell us anything.  In the subway, when you look at a map for more than a minute or two, someone will ask if you need help.  There are lots of other examples of this.

Ok – that’s all for now.  Here is a link to the slideshow for Tokyo pics (point-and-shoot only, more pics to come from another camera) – click the ‘i’ in the middle of the pictures to toggle the descriptions on and off during the slideshow:  http://flickr.com/photos/23884143@N06/sets/72157604545369471/show/

Next stop – Kyoto.

…sort of.  We’ve officially left home for our trip but we haven’t quite reached our first destination, Japan.  We’re stopping over in Tuscon, Arizona for a few days visiting my parents and we leave for Japan on Tuesday.  Still, the mental hurdle of actually leaving the house with the knowledge that your backpack holds all of the possessions you will have for the next six months or more has been cleared.  Here is a pic of said backpack and as you can see from the room behind me it was a disaster getting ready:

We basically stayed up all night packing – started at 5pm and finished at 2:30am.  We packed, unpacked, repacked, and repeatedly repeated the process until we fit everything we needed.  (Exactly what we needed was a constant source of debate but space limitations won out in the end.  Expect to see us wearing the same clothes in a lot of the pictures…)

Ok, a constant source of a debate is a bit of an exaggeration…although Ken did convince me to get rid of about 2 pounds of toiletries (what can I say, I like a certain kind of shampoo) and a few other key articles of clothing.  The way I think of it is, I can always refresh my wardrobe by editing along the way…out with some of the old and in with the new!  I’m already sick of some of my clothes…no way these things are lasting me six months. 

In any event, we’re on our way and for the next few days we’ll be boozing in the desert and taking pictures of cacti as you see below but probably not much else.

And here we see Little Spree chillin’ with new friend Jose:

Our next post should come from the Land of the Rising Sun (is that what they call it or did I just make that up?)…where we will be meeting up with two of our friends from Morgan Stanley, Sapna and Michelle — yay!

Ciao

Well, it’s just about time to take off.  I still feel like there are about a thousand things to do but I guess when you’re taking off for an extended period of time you can never have everything completely on autopilot.  So long as we make it back and our house is still here in some form or another I guess we’re in good shape.  I’m really tired of talking about it and thinking about it and explaining it etc. so it’ll be good to finally get on the road and start actually living it.  Of course, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I am freaking out a little at various moments throughout the day – just not enough to change my mind about any of this.

In any event, I just wanted to post quickly to point out that I’ve added two pages (see above tabs) with our rough itinerary and our contact info.  Nothing too exciting – that stuff comes later…

So, this will probably be our last post from home.  See you all when we get back!

Ken only thinks planning sucks because he’s never planned a trip before and he usually just shows up at the aiport with no idea where we are going or how we are getting there.  Now that I have delegated a portion of trip planning to him, he realizes it is not so easy.  But hey…there are worse things than trying to figure out where in the world we will be a month (and a year) from now.

Well, we’re about a month away, we have tons of ideas and a rough itinerary (very rough) and we’re looking to buy the major airline tickets later this week.  The rough itinerary goes something like this:

Japan for 10 days, China for 3 or 4 weeks (depends on whether we include Tibet or wait until the fall for that), then to Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand for about 2 months.  Thailand will hopefully include 2 weeks at Habitat for Humanity or some other charitable organization so it will be about 6 weeks of travel time to do Southeast Asia.  That should take us through the first week in July when we will fly to France for Remona’s wedding.  After the wedding, we will travel by train through part of Europe.  First to Amsterdam, then through Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, down the coast to Croatia and finally over to Italy.  We’ll be spending some time in Italy because we have a month in Rome where we will be in language school and then roughly another month traveling around the country (and practicing).  It should be around the end of September by then and we will fly home from Italy for a few weeks.  That will complete Leg 1 of the trip.

Leg 2 of the trip will start in early November, probably the first week.  We will go to Morocco, then Egypt and then on to India, Nepal and if we haven’t hit Tibet yet we will take a week after Nepal to go to Tibet.  After that we will fly to Malaysia to visit Remona and Jack (which they don’t know about) and then on to Bali.  From Bali we will go to Australia for about a month and then to New Zealand for a week-ish.  We will fly home from New Zealand some time in January of 2009.  That completes Leg 2 of the trip.

Leg 3 is simple but we haven’t completely worked it out yet – we’re going skiing for a couple of months out in Colorado (or in an unlikely scenario in Torino, Italy, for more language practice).

All of this is subject to change of course but we think this is pretty close to what we’ll be doing.  Anyway, nothing more for now…

Well, we’re in day two of the official planning process and I think my advice to anyone who would like to try this is to have someone hit you in the head with a tack hammer.  It’ll be much less painful.  We have loads of books some of which you can see in this picture. 

 

Unfortunately, the summer is about the worst time to travel anywhere in Asia according to the guides so we’re having difficulty trying to plan a route through Japan, China, Tibet, Nepal, India and Southeast Asia.  You don’t want to be in Beijing for the peak of summer because it’s smoking hot and crowded and you don’t want to be in Nepal because the monsoons come and make it impossible to get around – all mud and flooded rivers.  Combine that with a few predetermined destinations and dates (France in July for a wedding and Thailand in late May for Habitat for Humanity) and it makes my head hurt.  Good thing Krysten has always been a closet travel agent…

Hello all!  As promised, this is our blog where we will be posting the latest info on our whereabouts and our “Lost Weekend,” which of course will probably extend for slightly longer than a weekend.  Since there are two of us blogging, we’ve decided that my (Ken’s) entries will be in blue and Krysten’s entries will be in red.  In the column on the right we will be posting links to flickr (or some other photo hosting sight) where we will post all of our photos.

In order to reach us, you can send email to me at spasticferrett@gmail.com or to Krysten at kimmettk@gmail.com .  You can also post comments here if you don’t mind our many fans viewing your message. 

Since we are both new bloggers, I will come back to update this post with instructions as we figure out what we’re doing.

Toodles…