https://www.free-state-kansas.com/travelblog-old daily 0.75 2024-10-11 https://www.free-state-kansas.com/travelblog-old/Blog Post Title One-4g9k5 monthly 0.5 2020-08-27 https://www.free-state-kansas.com/travelblog-old/blog-post-title-two-n8mwn monthly 0.5 2020-05-20 https://www.free-state-kansas.com/travelblog-old/blog-post-title-three-2dshh monthly 0.5 2020-05-20 https://www.free-state-kansas.com/travelblog-old/blog-post-title-four-9ckmc monthly 0.5 2020-05-20 https://www.free-state-kansas.com/travelblog daily 0.75 2024-12-17 https://www.free-state-kansas.com/travelblog/2011/12/07/occupying-wall-street-gentrifying-harlem-first-world-problems-nyc-re-entry monthly 0.5 2024-12-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639571844-D4VTBP2ICYOID3FH6N4E/tumblr_lrzq44ddvf1qz5tgbo1_r2_400.jpg Travel Blog - Occupying Wall Street & Gentrifying Harlem: On First World Problems & NYC Re-Entry https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639566971-LMBWH2SKGG9NG18HT4HW/img_1082.jpg Travel Blog - Occupying Wall Street & Gentrifying Harlem: On First World Problems & NYC Re-Entry https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639569151-5JYU7A60NWLZRMVOV6TC/p1000006.jpg Travel Blog - Occupying Wall Street & Gentrifying Harlem: On First World Problems & NYC Re-Entry New York has changed since I left. Two things are different. First: white people feel completely comfortable walking around in Harlem at all times of the day and night. So much so that they carry golf club bags outside the 110th street train station at seven o'clock at night, run down Adam Clayton Powell in short shorts and trainers at six in the morning, skateboard past the projects at four, have boozy brunches in outdoor cafes on the sidewalks at eleven. Any combination of two of these things could get a white person beat up around here when I was coming up.So that's strange enough. But stranger still is fact number two: the city seems to be on fire. We're in the grips of some sort of class revolt or revolution or war; New York is not Berkeley and we don't usually get out of bed for that sort of thing. But I got back a little before the start of the Occupy Wall Street movement and here was my apathetic New York, at the epicenter of the biggest social movement in this country since, well, in a long time. I'm sure these two facts, the gentrifying of Harlem and the occupying of Wall Street, are intimately related. What I'm not so sure about is where I fit in between them.Nearly https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639570644-1BTBWJWHP9KUYDQT9BGU/p10000072.jpg Travel Blog - Occupying Wall Street & Gentrifying Harlem: On First World Problems & NYC Re-Entry https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639567844-T0FIMR3CZHPSQTWCUWV7/img_1089.jpg Travel Blog - Occupying Wall Street & Gentrifying Harlem: On First World Problems & NYC Re-Entry IMG_1089 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639568945-MQ14BU5ZERUJJ0RB8BLS/img_1090.png Travel Blog - Occupying Wall Street & Gentrifying Harlem: On First World Problems & NYC Re-Entry https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639567544-IGF2F67CBLPA086BBQQQ/img_1085.jpg Travel Blog - Occupying Wall Street & Gentrifying Harlem: On First World Problems & NYC Re-Entry IMG_1085 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639571645-7C6Q1GVKHUEJP66ZGG6F/p10000101.jpg Travel Blog - Occupying Wall Street & Gentrifying Harlem: On First World Problems & NYC Re-Entry https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/a6465e23-04bf-48a5-b197-cd0dfdb32738/IMG_1099.JPG Travel Blog - Occupying Wall Street & Gentrifying Harlem: On First World Problems & NYC Re-Entry https://www.free-state-kansas.com/travelblog/2011/09/21/youll-look-back-on-this-and-laugh-one-more-accidental-adventure-on-the-way-out-of-africa-or-“why-didnt-you-get-on-the-boat” monthly 0.5 2024-10-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639565645-NLC67OKFGITEEEZYMZDZ/p1040781.jpg Travel Blog - You'll Look Back On This And Laugh: One More Accidental Adventure On the Way Out of Africa (or “Why Didn't You Get On the Boat?”) ***** After the dawn we eagerly awaited our helicopter, but the first thing to actually come in was another damned pirogue. It spend up to us like Hawaii Five-O, stopped a few meters from the shore, and a handsome, strapping Senegalese man jumped out and swam up to shore in confident, professional strokes like he was some sort of Olympic athlete. What’s this? I thought. Hope he has breakfast hidden somewhere in that wet suit. Swimmer Dude was chipper. Okay guys, he said. We have a few boats on the other side in the cove. Time to go! Are you with the Embassy we ask? No he says, I am with the fire department. Are you a firefighter? No, I am a fisherman (!) but the fire marshal is on the other side waiting for us. The helicopter is not coming for you. You are supposed to take the boat. Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go! The fisherman immediately fall in line behind this leader that has emerged from the sea (they spent the night sleeping in that sacred mosque, the surf board pulled over them for a roof while the women, children and their concussed comrade shivered outside it). But my party hung back. I have a fear of heights and there was nothing I wanted more than to take a calm boat ride out of there. But the water was still pretty rough, not to mention we had activated the whole diplomatic apparatus and we would risk their wrath and embarrassment if we weren’t even there when the helicopter showed up. The head fisherman guy was probably trying a last ditch effort to avoid any military inroads into fisherman territory, not wanting to give them any excuse to wrest back control of the island. He was lying to us. I thought this was obvious to all. Except it wasn’t obvious to Saul, even though his wife Sophie worked in the ambassador’s office. “I’m just going to go down and check out the boats”, he said. “If it looks okay, I might just leave that way.” Say what? The Senegalese Air Force is coming for us and your wife works for State. The water is still kind of rough and you have a small child, two young women and a ton of shit with you. There’s an injured person in our party. If we don’t get on the helicopter it will be an international incident. Why do these guys want us to get on the boat so bad anyway? We all paid them last night, right? So there wouldn’t be any pressure or conflict of interest? “Well, actually we haven’t paid them yet,” Saul said. It was then that I lost my mind. “You haven’t paid them yet?” I yelled. “What the hell are you waiting for? They are probably sticking around all this time and sending extra boats this morning, trying to make sure they get their money.” It would be a small fortune in Senegalese terms, almost a month’s normal salary. “Well, I don’t know if Sophie paid them or not last night when she got in,” Saul said. “Then get your wife on the phone and ask her. You’ve been talking to her all night.” “Well, what did you guys pay?”, Saul asked. What I wanted to say was: “You mean you didn’t negotiate a rate before you left? First rule of Fight Club Africa: never get in any motorized vehicle before negotiating the fee up front. Figure it out, handle your shit, and get your ass on the helicopter. Matter of fact, give us the baby and we will safely take him back to your wife aboard the helicopter, and you and that huge wetbag and the surfboard can do whatever the hell you like.” But instead all I got around to saying was, “We paid five thousand CFA a person.” The rest of the potential conversation was drowned out by the noisy din of the approaching helicopter. Saved! Praise Jesus! The rescue goes by in a blur. As the 1970’s M*A*S*H style military cargo helicopter lands and we realize why they couldn’t come get us last night. Scores of Senegalese Air Force personnel stream out endlessly, like clowns out of a circus car. A medic. Several soldiers with large rifles. Two photographers. A videographer. More soldiers. Finally, a man in a tricolored red, green and yellow jumpsuit, very good posture and a jaunty black beret. He is the head general in charge and he is here to rescue us, goddamit! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639566350-WVKETUD7O55K2SCUXRVY/p1040790.jpg Travel Blog - You'll Look Back On This And Laugh: One More Accidental Adventure On the Way Out of Africa (or “Why Didn't You Get On the Boat?”) Stunned, sleep deprived, deeply embarrassed and now also a little amused, we are herded on to the helicopter like a grimy rock band entourage. Cameras snap in our faces. The Medic looks around for Man Down but he is long gone – left with the fisherman on their morning boat. The head fisherman and very good swimmer comes with us, however; no doubt to fairly represent his side’s interests in whatever negotiation and fault finding exercise will take place when we land at the air force base. I write my name several times over in the less than official looking notebooks being handed to me by various military officials. I’m trying to take pictures and so is Ginger, but apparently that is strictly prohibited. Then what are their cameras for? Just for official military records, we are told. (The next day our pictures and a video will appear in the Senegalese press.) It’s not the dirtiest or tiredest I’ve been on this trip. My terror over low flying planes melts away at the beauty of the panoramic view of Dakar out of the window. It’s truly in a magnificent location on its triangle shaped peninsula, the farthest point west on the whole African continent. This island is the farthest point west I have come in a whole trip of moving steadily west to get back to the east coast of America. This is my last stop, and I’m suddenly sad to leave it. At Air Force Headquarters our rescue team quickly morphs into a team of captors. We broke the law, sort of. When we called the parks department and they told us the island was recently back open for visitors (which we actually did do), they gave us bad information. We should have called the forest department, they are the ones in charge. And they would have had to give us an escort for us to legally be allowed to go there. We are not allowed to leave the base for hours. They want statements. They want our passports (which we don’t have). They want our cameras. They want our flash drive camera memory cards (there goes Ginger’s video footage). But what they probably really want is a bribe. Sophie is there, with croissants for us and with Baby Girl. Baby Girl is in a cute dress, looking no worse for wear. Sophie and Embassy Dude are busy being diplomatic, saving our asses. The rest of us gulp water and keep our mouths shut, too tired to be able to properly grovel as is required right now. Eventually we make it out of there. After showering for most of a day we reconvene that evening and have hummus and pita, Xanax and wine. We apply cream to the mosquito bites and sit with our other friends who were wise enough not to come out that day. Already the pain is fading and all we can do is sit around and joke and laugh about it. “You must have found shelter.” “Why didn’t you get on the boat?” Sophie’s Choice. These and other funny-in-retrospect oneliners carry the evening. Not even the extensive Senegalese press coverage the next day can kill the buzz. According to the Senegalese press, our pitiful group of half drowned American tourists was abandoned by the fisherman to their fate, and then rescued by the timely, heroic and well coordinated efforts of the Senegalese Air Force and Dakar Fire Department. They even fed us a nice breakfast. A local injured man was taken to a nice hospital. The online comments from the locals are fittingly caustic. “They never would have bothered if those had been Senegalese trapped over there.” “This is a ridiculous and wasteful use of our military.” “Should have let those spoiled brats stay over there, or drown.” I’m glad I learned enough French to be able to read how much these people hate me. If it had been anybody else besides me they were talking about, I would have been inclined to agree. The Associated Press writes a more balanced story, but unfortunately it’s picked up by about two dozen papers. I think we even appeared in the Seattle Washington Times. ***** A day later I drove past that island on my way to the airport for the final flight of my round the world trip, back to New York City. Remember that time we got stuck overnight on that deserted island? I didn’t know whether or not to laugh or shake my fist at the island in triumph. I’ll never look at an episode of Lost the same way again. Now as I sit in Harlem trying to recreate in words what this trip has meant to me, I feel the same way about all of it as I did the evening after we got off the island. All the bad, difficult parts have faded away. I’m sure I was uncomfortable, scared, cold, hungry, sick, hot and exhausted much of the time on this trip. I was in some pretty gnarly places. But all I can seem to remember is the fun I had. Setting paper lanterns adrift on New Year’s Eve on the beach in Thailand with Jee. Gorging on vegetarian food in Mysore with Julia. Crunching Cardamon seeds in Coorg on that organic forest farm with Cody. Drinking coffee from seeds pooped out of a rodent’s butt in Bali, again with Cody. Ducking low hanging branches trying to decapitate us on the hop on, hop off bus in Nice with Ivy. Riding the tram without paying on the way to the mall to see X-Men: First Class in French in Montpellier. Cheap Turkish food and great British TV in Hackney with Kayla. Getting drunk with that Danish guy on desert wine in that bar in Bordeaux. John’s daughter’s bunny pooping all over me in Casablanca. Thunder and lightening cutting the power on us, and sitting momentarily in a dark bar full of whores on a Friday night in Dakar during Ramadan. A million other things like that I never wrote about that now pop up in weird moments as fond memories, like old friends calling. I want to stay on my trip and I think I found a way. Many things annoy me about New York, but I know I will look back on this time right now too and I’m only going to remember the good times. Glee night with my gay boy crew. Beautiful fall walks in Central Park with my friend’s cute little pit bull. Seeing my mom again after ten whole months (the longest I’ve ever gone). Finally getting to eat some organic tofu. Taking the train out to see friends in God foresaken places like Philly, Mt. Claire & Hoboken. Finally getting to drink water straight from the tap. If ultimately I wasn’t going to remember any of the annoying parts of my life, why not forget about them right now while they are happening? Why not only focus instead only on the things that are going to be a pleasure to remember? Instead of being nostalgic for my trip, I could be pre-stalgic for the present moment. That way, I would never have to come down from this high of being one crazy ass adventure. Hey! Remember that time we spent the fall in New York City job hunting and couch surfing and museum hopping, sweating through Bikhram yoga while stranded on the island of Manhattan? Those were good times. LOL. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639566350-WVKETUD7O55K2SCUXRVY/p1040790.jpg Travel Blog - You'll Look Back On This And Laugh: One More Accidental Adventure On the Way Out of Africa (or “Why Didn't You Get On the Boat?”) It’s two o’clock in the morning, and I am in a bikini, huddled under two wet towels with three other colored American girls. We are on a deserted island, shivering in the cold. Dakar blinks at us across the harbor. We weren’t chased here by terrorists, nor did our airplane crash. We made some choices that day that seemed reasonable at the time, a reasonable day out being tourists. Some day no doubt we will look back on this and laugh. Right now though each of us would give anything to take it all back, or to be able to swim safely across the short half mile of open sea separating us from our warm clean beds. But the waves are too rough and oh boy there is a storm front coming in. We are nice girls. Smart girls. Really we are. So how did we get trapped on an uninhabited island with no food, water or shelter? And more importantly, how do we get out? ***** Senegal is a beautiful country and Dakar is a big city a bit like New York, except that it is ringed with fabulous beaches and beautiful islands in its harbor. N’Gor Island is the place where the surfers like to hang out; you take a five minute boat ride from the suburbs out to it. Goree Island is where you go to get your history on; you take an official state ferry out to it and see the pens where the slaves were kept for their final few hours before the Middle Passage. Lovely islands, both. And then there is the mysterious Ile de Madeline, a wild island with no buildings, no hotels, no museums, no electricity, no nothing. Completely undeveloped in all its green glory. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639563852-L67ZVOA8IOCGIYK2QUGE/img_2731.jpg Travel Blog - You'll Look Back On This And Laugh: One More Accidental Adventure On the Way Out of Africa (or “Why Didn't You Get On the Boat?”) My last two weeks in Dakar I got in with an interesting crew; some diplomat & state department types and I had been having a great time living it up expat style in Dakar. They were colored American girls like me and we ran amok in Dakar, trying to find Chinese, Thai or Indian food. The names of these girls have been changed to protect the innocent, and also just because it’s fun. So we’ll call my new Dakar crew Ginger, Mary Ann and Lovey. I’ll play the part of Gilligan. It’s an open secret around the Dakar expat scene that Ile de Madeline has fabulous unspoiled beaches and that people go there all the time, despite it not being officially open to tourists. In order to reach it, you have to charter a fishing pirogue and the fishermen will take you. The fishermen control the waters and the traffic around Ile de Madeline, and they have made themselves into a quasi-martial force to be reckoned with. A year ago there was a show down between the fisherman, who like many trading professions in Senegal are organized into a tight yet unofficial religiously flavored union of sorts, and the Senegalese Coast Guard. Officially Ile de Madeline and the waters around it are a protected national park and no fishing is allowed there. But unofficially the fishermen go there all the time, getting great catches. One day about a year ago a fishing boat was out and it was spotted by the Senegalese Coast Guard. The Coast Guard officers warned the boat they needed to pull up anchor and get out of there. The boat didn’t, so when the Coast Guard came around and saw them a second time, the officers opened fired on the boat’s engine. Unfortunately, they didn’t just hit the engine. They also hit one of the fishermen and killed him. This sparked off a confrontation between the Coast Guard and the fishers that culminated in riots and the fisher’s destroying the one building on Ile de Madeline, a Coast Guard outpost. Since then, the Coast Guard has never resumed patrolling the waters near Ile de Madeline. The fishers maintain it as a quasi-independent zone inside Dakar. There’s bad blood and hard feelings to go around on all sides; no doubt the Coast Guard could retake the area but Senegal is a civil place and the military is not going to run that roughshod over a well organized group of citizens. So the stalemate continues. Meanwhile, the fishermen do a brisk business ferrying tourists to the Ile de Madeline for five thousand CFA a pop round trip (about twelve dollars). This is good money as an average middle class person in Dakar probably only earns about fifty thousand CFA a month. And so our multi-culti American crew charted a fishing boat and set off with cameras, Pringles and bathing suits to enjoy a day of wading at Ile de Madeline. When we got down to the fish market to hire our boat, Ginger recognized a friend from work who was out of the Ambassador’s office. She was a very sporty white lady who was going down to the island with her husband and two toddlers (daughter 5, son 3). We’ll call her Sophie, the husband Saul, and the kids Baby Girl & Baby Boy. Sophie had done this trip many times before and was negotiating her boat prices with the fisherman. We found a dude for us, a crew actually of a young guy with dreads and an older, wizened gentleman with a blue cap. The four of us got in the pirogue with Dreadlocks and Blue Cap and set off for the ten minute journey to the island. A pirogue is the traditional fishing vessel in Dakar and basically it is a small wooden canoe-like boat about 15 feet long with an outrigger motor off the back. It sits pretty low to the water, but being a small boat it can dock quite easily on beaches. When my friend first told me about the trip, I was a little nervous about the size of the boat. I had been on small boats like this before, boat taxi-ing around the beaches of the islands of Thailand. I remembered how terrifying they could be. One good wave could capsize these things and send you to a watery grave. But my friend assured me that the waters were calm and that the ride would be short. I said I would see how I felt when I saw the boat. When the boat came in, it was such a nice day and the fishermen seemed so confident as if this was all so routine, so I got on board. The beach we departed from was filthy, gray sand and grayer water. I was very excited to be going someplace pristine. The first eight minutes of the boat ride were charming and uneventful. We were low to the water but there weren’t really any waves, and I focused ahead on the approaching beautiful island to control my fear. Then we rounded the side out toward the open sea and we were looking into a beautiful narrow cove in the center of an island that split down the middle like a heart shaped box of chocolates. This center channel was the approach to our beautiful, secluded beach. The only problem was it was a rocky approach with clots of whitewater. I wondered how we were going to get in over that, three foot swells crashing against rocks. It looked like a river rapids, but it was the open sea. We idled in the boat, Blue Cap bringing us up around to the cove so we were parallel to the rapids, waiting. What is he waiting for? I thought. We could feel the motion of the rapids even out where we were, and we were all starting to get a little scared. Suddenly our captain gunned the engine and we were heading straight for a wave. No, we were actually riding that wave, boat surfing it in, the wall of water now behind us and pushing us into the cove. Blue Cap had timed it perfectly. Our boat crested past the rocks at the tail end of a good sized swell. We fist pumped all the way in and crashed into the sand, quickly hopping out. Some teenage boys who had been there camped all night ran out to help drag the boat further in. We applauded our captain as we got out, standing on the shore with shaky adrenaline legs. That had been a little dangerous. The cove was beautiful. The island curved in on itself like a figure eight, and through a narrow opening sat our rocky beach. On either side of the beach were the low cliffs of the island. At one end was the opening we came through and at the other end was a short wall of rocks that open sea waves gently swelled over as well. In the background was another depression, and every once in a while whitewater would splash up out of it as well. The beach was all smooth black volcanic rock of various sizes, crustacean shells and coral. It was one of the most beautiful beaches I had ever seen, and I had been to a lot of nice beaches on this trip. In the center of this wonderful rock formation was a deep natural pool, perfect for swimming. Or it would have been perfect, except for the currents. As soon as we got there, we saw a group of Lebanese teens had crossed over the shallow end of the pool near the mouth we came in on to hang out at the tiny sand beach on the other side. We wondered why the weren’t moving to cross back over, until we got down in the water on our side of the pool. Every time a swell came up from either side of the cove, the water in the pool would crest violently. It was like being in a giant toilet that was being flushed as water, rocks and sharp shells would come at you from all sides. Our friend Sophie’s pirogue made a dramatic entrance. It wasn’t as well piloted, or maybe it was too laden down with two couples, one single white lady, one Senegalese nanny, three toddlers, a man-sized wetbag full of God-Knows-What, and a surf board. In any case, Sophie’s boat seemed to come in on a wave twice the size of ours. The water looked as if it was crashing in over the sides of their boat as the fishermen jumped out as soon as it was shallow enough, trying to pull it in. One lady went all momma bear (from now on we’ll call her Momma Bear) and grabbed her toddler out, holding it above her head as she waded solo around the white water to a safer crossing point. Diesel! Sophie got out to try to help guide the boat in. For a scary second the white water was over her head and it looked like she was being dragged back out to sea. Then a fisher grabbed her by both arms and hauled her back to the side of the boat. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639564744-HA145FFQN3ZWP9NI68O3/p1040774.jpg Travel Blog - You'll Look Back On This And Laugh: One More Accidental Adventure On the Way Out of Africa (or “Why Didn't You Get On the Boat?”) When her party finally made it to the beach they all sat on the shore for a while, not swimming and not talking. My crew was starting to get a bit nervous. But the Lebanese teens were still playing nicely in the water so we decided to chill out a bit. We took a hike to the top of the island. Tourists call this island the island of Madeline, but the locals call it Snake Mountain, so were were on the lookout for any creepy crawlies in the tall grass. There was an amazing baobab tree, curving out and tumbling along the ground like a strange witch’s hair, and lots of mysterious tall grass. When we got to the top we could see all of Dakar on its peninsula in front of us. It looked so close; yet far enough away to mask its imperfections and to be quite beautiful. There was also another hidden beach down a ravine on this side. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639563345-VTPCANWCHP3VWS4LUZGI/img_2721.jpg Travel Blog - You'll Look Back On This And Laugh: One More Accidental Adventure On the Way Out of Africa (or “Why Didn't You Get On the Boat?”) I had been to N’Gor and had a lovely time. I had been to Goree and had a lovely time. But I also wanted to go to Madeline, complete the Dakar island trifecta. The problem is, no one is actually allowed to go to Madeline. It’s kinda sorta officially closed. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639566545-VGNFA2F2FZI7QL2KLMFP/test-photos-2010-12-02-017.jpg Travel Blog - You'll Look Back On This And Laugh: One More Accidental Adventure On the Way Out of Africa (or “Why Didn't You Get On the Boat?”) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639565349-DRUNW3CQFDSD7P45V54R/p1040778.jpg Travel Blog - You'll Look Back On This And Laugh: One More Accidental Adventure On the Way Out of Africa (or “Why Didn't You Get On the Boat?”) We hiked back to our beach. Down there, the Lebanese Teens looked ready to go home. The rock bridge they had crossed over on was rapidly disappearing. You had to time the swells just right to be able to cross back over it. They looked out at the rising water, debating when and how to cross back over to the side of the cove that the boats could leave on. The rocks looked slippery, sharp and painful. The island was beautiful but it clearly it was time to go home now. Maybe we should have turned right around as soon as we got in. But we were waiting out the tide; the fishers had told us that it was high tide when we got in, and that if we waited a bit the tide should lower and we would be able to time the waves and head easy back out the left entrance we had come in on. A few hours had passed now and it didn’t look any lower to me. The Lebanese Teens clung to each other as they crossed the rocks back to their boat, falling in and struggling to get back up before a new set of waves came down on them. There were these little lulls but you had to time it perfectly. When the teens got over, wet and bedraggled and no longer laughing, they sat in their fully loaded boat for over twenty minutes before their pilot found a break and gunned them out. As soon as they made it out, another wave came cresting in the exit way. The waves were only getting higher. Everyone was clearing out while they could. The campers took off next. We were now down to just two boats left in the cove, ours and the original one the larger party had come in on. They were clearly overloaded, but had neglected to send some of their party back with earlier boats because they wanted to stay together. This was husband Saul’s decision, we suspected he was a bit nervous about their original pilot and wanted to get in with our more experienced guy. But now there were seventeen of us left on the island (twelve tourists and five fisher dudes), and we would have to try to get out on just two boats. Meanwhile the swells were getting higher, now cresting up and over into the cove at about five feet. Sophie’s crew looked at us and we looked at them. It was showtime. We were going to try to time it and gun it out. More importantly, we were going to try to leave them. Us four ladies grabbed our vests of rescue (as they are called in French) and stood truculently by our boat, looking tough. Sure enough, as we loaded in, Saul also came over to load in his wife, two kids, nanny and the single white lady into our boat. I guess our menacing countenances weren’t as scary as the thought of getting back out all in their too heavy boat. Now we weighed a million pounds and change. Blue Cap was silent and grave. No openings big enough yet for our newly heavy traveling party. We sat, tense and stiff in the boat, waiting. The waves just got bigger and bigger. At one point I looked over my shoulder at a wall of water coming fast at us. Should we get out of the boat? I thought, strangely calm. No, the fishermen know what they are doing. Wait for it to pass and we’ll be fine. Then I looked ahead at another wall of water coming toward us from the opposite direction. “Shouldn’t we get out of the boat?” my friend Lovey beside me asked. “No”, I said. “Don’t panic. The fisher guys know what is up. They are just timing it. We have to wait. Don’t even look at the water”. Then the waves were upon us. The boat was rocking violently. The children were screaming. Water was coming in over the sides. My heart was hammering. Saul was trying to steady the boat from the left side but he was now also up to his chin in the water, looking ready to drown. His wife was screaming at him to get out of the water. The babies were screaming even louder. Surely this was not be a part of the plan. Then Blue Cap was shouting “Descend! Descend! Descend!” which in French means “Get out of the fucking boat, now!” We scrambled for our lives out of the boat and into the fast moving water, wading back toward shore. Except the shore wasn’t were we left it. Our beach was being erased by the quickly rising water level. We had to scramble up the rocky shore, and then we had to keep scrambling halfway up the hill. Single White Chick screamed. Sophie yelled at her husband Saul, “Get out of the water!” He was still down their with the fishermen who were now just trying to make sure the boats didn’t wash out to sea, but he didn’t have any idea what he was doing. Our boat washed dangerously close to his head. Meanwhile boat number two, the empty boat that was downstream of us, flew out of control. At first we saw three fishermen trying to drag it back to shore. One was behind it, out in the whitewater, head level with the boat. Then we saw the boat get violently ripped out of the hands of the fishermen on shore and then swept away, hitting the guy in the water on the head. He sank under the water. Then we saw him surface, clinging to the banks with both hands as his legs were swept up and away behind him into the rapids. The other two fishermen managed to get him in, carrying him like a wet sack of potatoes by the arms and legs and flopping him up on what was left of the beach. Then they went in back in for the boat. The downed man wasn’t moving. The engine of the other boat had taken in a lot of water. The fisherman got it out of the boat and there it sat up on the hill’s incline next to Man Down, looking like a beached whale. Things had just gone from kinda scary but kinda funny to absolutely terrifying. We scrambled up the path that led into the interior of the island, shell shocked and waving our phones. Was anyone getting a signal? Ginger’s Blackberry was getting something. She called the emergency line that U.S. government workers with diplomatic passports use when they are in trouble. It was like that. We had a man down and three terrified kids with us, and it was six o’clock. The sun would be down soon. It was time to act like the spoiled American expats we were and call in the cavalry. We got our embassy officer on the phone. Ginger took charge of the situation and explained the relevant details. The nanny and the other two mothers and the single white chick were down the hill a ways comforting the kids with the other husband. Saul was back to being useless, on the beach trying to help with the boats. I thought back over those waves again. This wasn’t the tide coming in; too strong to be that. This had to be the tail end or beginning of some sort of storm system. Maybe no boat would be able to get out in this. I said to Ginger “Well, if we have to spend the night on this island, we’ll survive it.” “No,” she said reasonably. “The embassy will help us. We’ll probably be home in a few hours.” I shivered in my wet bikini. Supposing the zombie apocalypse went down in Dakar right now and we were the only survivors because we were stranded out on this island? Would we have the human capital necessary to rebuild society? We were a motley crew, to be sure. Sophie & Saul and their white lady friend and the black nanny taking care of their kids. Blue Cap & Dreadlocks, another random two fishermen from Sophie’s boat who we’ll call Random & Tighty (we’ll explain that name in a moment), and the Man Down. Mama Bear from the daring earlier beach rescue, her strangely silent husband and their little Baby Bear. A corpse-sized wetbag filled with God-Knows-What. A surfboard. This was what would be left of the human race? I needed a role. I started to walk back and forth between Ginger who was on high ground trying to get reception, and the other two girls in my party who were down the path somewhat, away from the parents and kids. Ginger got off the phone with Embassy Dude and relayed the news. He would have to check with his contacts within the Senegalese government, but it looked like they would either send a helicopter or a boat to come get us tonight. He would call back soon and let us know the plan. Great. We all breathed sighs of relief. It paid to have friends in high places. Maybe we would get off this island safely tonight after all. In style, even. But the fishermen had another plan. On the eve of our imminent rescue by the U.S. Embassy, Single White Chick came running up the hill toward us. “Guess what?” she said. “The fishermen are still trying to get a boat out of the cove!” We went down to see what was going on, curious as to whether or not this time we would really see someone die. Blue Cap was attempting to leave the harbor in the one remaining working boat, alone. The waves coming in on both sides of the cove were almost seven feet now. Ginger took out her camera. There was nothing for us to do but video tape this. Blue Cap was calm, waiting for his moment. A wave crested, and there was a momentary pause in the whitewater. It couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds, but it was a window. Blue Cap gun the engined and shot out of the cove at high speed, only the back end of his boat actually in the water. As he got to the mouth, he caught air and bounded over the rocky entrance out into the open sea. We cheered. He made it! Then we realized that he would never have been able to do that with anyone else in there weighing down the boat. As long as these waves held, there was no way anyone else was getting in or out of that cove. We walked back up the path to the crest of the island. Mary Ann was up there now, having gotten some signal on her phone. She was on the phone with the Senegalese Fire Department. We needed to work all the angles, and her French was the best out of the bunch. Joe at the Fire Department was coordinating with Embassy Dude. The Fire Department (and not the Coast Guard) was going to send a boat. We just stood there for a minute. The sun is pretty low; probably would be down in about an hour. If we’re leaving, we’ll be leaving in the dark. How would a boat find us? And someone should probably go back down to the beach and check on Man Down. In general, Senegalese men are large, handsome and well built, all sable jet black skin and sinewy muscles (simmer down now, straight ladies and gay men reading this). I think they realize how much better looking they are then most of the men around the world. One of our fisherman party in particular had spent the entire day in his black tighty whities instead of in swimming shorts, leaving very little to the imagination. I suppose Tighty and his crew, like men everywhere, do not like to admit defeat, especially in front of a group of women and children. Just then, Tighty, the big strapping man that he was, came past us carrying the two hundred pound outrigger engine of the downed pirogue over his shoulder. He was followed by Man Down, who was up and walking on his bloodied leg, dizzy looking and barefoot, a huge knot forming above his right eye. Dreadlocks brought up the rear. “Cmon”, he says in French. This whole thing is mostly going down in French at this point. “Where are we going?” we ask. “To the other side of the island. There is another beach. We’re going to get everyone out that way.” So our motley crew made the short trip over the tall grasses and baobab trees to the other side of the island. The family of four struggled along with their kids and that huge damn wetbag and that surfboard. I carried the little girl over some tree branches that were too big for her. She was a tiny, delicate version of her strapping blonde athletic mom. It was a rough day for a five year old, but she was a trooper. Little Baby Bear was getting a ride on his dad’s shoulders, laughing and singing kumbaya. As we moved along, the sun set behind us. It was beautiful. But now we would soon be in the dark. ***** We make a steep descent onto the other beach. Only it’s not much of a beach, more like a collection of small boulders that end abruptly at the sea. The fishers must come here a lot, though, because there is a small cleared area of sand with a low wall of rocks built up around it. Baby Bear wanders into it, playful and in good spirits. Dreadlocks follows him in to pull him out. “Don’t go in there”, he says. “This area is our mosque. It is sacred”. But to me it just looks like our only shelter right now. We’re not pigs though, so we steer clear of it. Although there is no narrow cove on this side, the water is just as choppy. The sky is now overcast and we conclude that these waves aren’t tide but evidence of impending storm activity. But Blue Cap is here! He hasn’t left us after all, just circled the island to try to get us out on the other side. We are down to his one boat for seventeen people. Blue Cap is trying to get his pirogue up close to the beach. It’s twilight now. He can’t get in, he has to stop about fifty meters from the edge of the beach, his boat bouncing up and down in the waves. The water between him and beach roils. Dreadlocks keeps motioning us over to the edge of the water. “Come on,” he says. “Time to get in the boat.” “Get in what boat?” I ask. “You just have to swim out to it,” he says. “It’s short. You can swim for it.” So this is their plan? Have us swim out toward a boat in choppy water with the night rapidly drawing down on us? Obviously these black people did not know that black people can’t swim. We haven’t heard back from our guy at the embassy in a while, so there is no ETA on our other boat, but a bigger boat that can get closer to us seems like the only sane option. On this side of the island we are facing Dakar and it is tantalizingly close. If it were land between us and not water, we could walk to Dakar from here in twenty minutes. Sophie joins the conversation. “There are so many of us. Why don’t you guys just take that one and we’ll wait for the other boat.” She says it like she’s doing us some favor, but now I am convinced she is insane. Earlier in the day she was floating her toddler along on top of their surfboard in that crazy killer toilet bowl of a tidal pool on the other side of the island. Clearly she has no natural fear of death. Some of my internal monologue must have made it out because Sophie responds with “I’m a strong swimmer.” That’s great for her. The next thing I know Sophie is down there at the edge of the water with her husband and the two babies. They are going to try to swim out to the boat. We watch, frozen. Surely someone is finally going to die now. Sophie jumps into the water and swims out to the boat, grappling on. She is indeed a very strong swimmer. Once again Blue Cap is waiting for his moment, timing it. He gets a little closer. Saul is there on the shore with the two kids. There’s no time to think. This is Sophie’s big Choice, and she motions for her daughter. Saul practically tosses the child into the boat and then Blue Cap takes off, narrowly avoiding a crash into the rocky beach. It all goes down in thirty seconds while we hold our breath. Now their boat is back out there about a hundred meters from the beach, bobbing up and down in the water on three or four foot waves, looking for a new opening to sidle back up and grab the rest of the family. The last light is dwindling fast. Ginger gets a call from Embassy Guy. It goes something like this: “When do you think we will be evacuated?” she asks calmly. “Well, soon, we are sending a boat; the Dakar fire department will be sending a boat, that is.” “Okay, yes but we are on the other side of the island now and it is dark. Will they be able to see us?” “Yes, of course.” “Okay, we’ll sit tight here on the beach, then.” “Okay, I will call back soon with an update.” “Thanks.” Click. Blue Cap and Sophie wait a few more minutes and then leave. There are no lights on the pirogue so who knows how they will make it to the other side. Ten minutes pass and Blue Cap is back this time, alone in his boat. What happened? He had Sophie and Baby Girl change boats in the middle(!) so he could come back and try to get more of us out. He stays until it is pitch black, which is just a few more minutes really. There’s no way he can really see us now and he can’t get any closer. Finally, he takes off for the last time. We are down to no boats and fourteen people. Mary Ann calls the fire department to check on our boat. A rapid exchange goes down in French and Mary Ann hangs up quickly, angry. It goes down something like this: “Just calling to inquire on the status of our fire department boat.” “I don’t have any information about that because the boat has already been sent down to the beach and they are on their way.” “Can you call them to find out where they are?” “They don’t have a phone on the boat.” “Okay well can you tell us what kind of boat to look out for?” “It will be a pirogue.” WTF? Another pirogue? “Do they have a light?” Mary Ann asks. “I don’t know. Probably not because it is a pirogue.” “Okay, well, how are they supposed to find us?” “I don’t know. It’s late and it’s dark. What do you expect me to do now? I heard there was a pirogue already there. Why didn’t you get on the boat?” Whoa. Whoa. Call ends. Cursing and violence ensue. Why didn’t we get on the boat, indeed. The fire department boat never shows up. We get a call later from Sophie. She and Baby Girl have made it, after a rough trip and not one but two open water boat changes later. When they arrived at the shore they saw the Senegalese fire department rescue boat. It was an ordinary fisherman pirogue, to which they had tethered an engine-less row boat; no lights on either of them. It made it out a few meters and then had to turn right back around, unable to manage the waves. It’s eleven p.m. when it starts to sink in. We are spending the night on this island. It’s getting cold. This is Snake Mountain, after all, so there is no way we are heading up into the interior to search the tall grass for a hatch. This is it. We are going to spend the night sitting up on this exposed beach, with no food, water, clothing or shelter; praying the storm doesn’t come all the way in. Where did it all go wrong? A three hour tour . . . Lovey has us finish off the Pringles and then we divide a miniature sized packet of Peanut M&Ms that she finds in her purse. It’s about four M&Ms per person. They taste so good. We don’t even think of sharing with the other party, now huddled a few meters down the beach. Let them eat their young. Ginger gets a call from Embassy Dude. “You guys still on the island?” he asks. What is the appropriate response to that? “Yes,” Ginger says. “Well, it’s getting pretty windy. Is there any shelter?” “No.” “Do you guys have any jackets you can put on?” Jackets? It’s equatorial Africa in August. No we don’t have any jackets. “No,” Ginger says. “You guys are going to have to be a little more patient, we’re still figuring out the boat thing.” “We heard it wasn’t coming at all.” “Oh you heard about that? Oh well, let me talk to the wounded guy.” We put him on the phone. After a brief exchange, Embassy Dude gets back on. “Well, as you know the boat thing didn’t work out, and since that guy doesn’t sound so bad and this situation is not life threatening, we have decided to let you guys spend the night on the island. We will send the helicopter in the morning.” “Why can’t it come tonight?” “It can’t land at night, but in the morning there will be a doctor on it and we’ll get you guys out first thing after sunrise at six fifteen. So just hang tight, and if anything worsens you just give me a call.” Click. I always thought military helicopters could land at night, but oh well. We had all accepted at this point that we were going to be spending the night on the island; even optimist Ginger. Now the question was what was our strategy? With the cold and the wind and the lack of horizontal surfaces, it would be impossible to sleep. Tide is unpredictable and there is not much beach, plus no flat surface to lay down in besides that off limits little mosque. It was most practical to stay awake. We resolve to stay up the whole night. We would play games and keep ourselves entertained, staying close for body heat. For seven hours we alternate between warm fun games and cold sad silence. We play the movie game, where you have to name a movie that begins with the letter my movie ended with. We make fun of our rescuers and crack each other up. We discuss the plot of Glee and what might happen next season. We try not to think about the flashes of light illuminating the sky on the right horizon every few seconds. “You know, we’ll probably look back on this in eight short hours and laugh. Remember that time we got stuck on that deserted island? LOL.” As if to mock our sentiment, an icy cold front of wind blows in. We drape the wet towels over ourselves and huddled close in a circle, making a sad little tent. It is so humid I can feel the gritty skin trying to peel off from my salty legs and arms. Everything touching me is sticky and cold. I consider crying. Embassy Dude had said to call if anything changed and something had changed. We were now freezing and there were even sporadic drops of rain. Surely hypothermia was life threatening. Might that change their minds about sending a helicopter out tonight? Embassy Dude: “Hello? Oh good. You must have found shelter now because I don’t hear wind.” Ginger: “No we are just under some wet towels.” Embassy Dude: “Oh.” Ginger: “Well, listen we’re calling because there are a lot of bright flashes in the sky but no thunder, and it just got super cold. Also, we felt raindrops.” Embassy Dude: “Well, don’t worry about the bright lights, that’s just heat lightening, not real lightening. The weather report says it’s not supposed to rain. We’ll have some hot beverages for you guys when we pick you up in the morning.” Click. It seems everyone is intent on clowning us tonight, and I suppose we kind of deserve it. It’s two a.m. and when you are up at 2 a.m. with friends and trapped on an island, it often turns to the serious topics. Now we were playing a dating game of sorts. We were asking each other those deep getting to know you questions. What can’t you live without? Who is your best friend? What’s the most important trait you look for in a lover? Ginger asks: “What’s the one thing you are afraid for anyone to know about you?” We all answer in turn. Mary Ann says “my sometimes low self esteem”. This is surprising as she is the smartest, prettiest and toughest amongst us. I say I am afraid of being alone. I guess it took me a year of being mostly alone to figure that one out. But right now are not alone, and we are not exactly miserable either. In one sense, we are kind of having a good time. We aren’t in real danger (except for Man Down, who probably has a concussion) anymore. We are just uncomfortable. We are in a whole lot of moderate discomfort. But we are also in one of the most beautiful places in the country. We focus on the glittery skyline of Dakar across the water. Eventually it gets super dark and we all stand up and several of us get our cameras ready. This is the dark before the dawn. We made it. The sun is coming up. And it is going to be stunning. https://www.free-state-kansas.com/travelblog/2011/08/15/made-in-africa-mali-music-and-muddled-identities-on-my-first-trip-to-the-motherland monthly 0.5 2024-10-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639556644-SRQV35M9FZFYUYVT4FOC/3.jpg Travel Blog - Made in Africa: Mali, Music and Muddled Identities on My First Trip to the Motherland 3 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639559144-E63X10E9MDV5JN9TA8BG/cropped-p10406961.jpg Travel Blog - Made in Africa: Mali, Music and Muddled Identities on My First Trip to the Motherland https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639556945-X07YSNVWDML97O1A6HCD/4.jpg Travel Blog - Made in Africa: Mali, Music and Muddled Identities on My First Trip to the Motherland 4 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639555346-ZKFT98XXM3XEEPCR4Q5R/1.jpg Travel Blog - Made in Africa: Mali, Music and Muddled Identities on My First Trip to the Motherland We reached the end of the song. I got a soda pop that was more sugar than water. Happy patrons came up to the stage to stick CFA notes on Baba’s head as tips. His expression never changed. Soon we saw the woman who had fallen, back on the dance floor as if nothing had happened. We danced until we couldn’t take it anymore and left with the party still in swing. First night in Mali, back and forth between sick fascinated voyeurism and on the ground intimacy. It stayed like that the whole trip. In Mali we saw many things were you wanted to look away but were unable to; and other situations were you got charmed into being a part of it. Nature’s Fury The first full day in Bamako we decided to walk out for some lunch and didn’t get very far. We were introduced first hand to the fury of nature here and how unforgiving it is, even if you have money. You can’t protect yourself. We were walking over the bridge over the Niger river, a very wide river, admiring the view. It was rainy season and we were emotionally prepared for that. Storm clouds, plump and delicious looking, were coming in from the right. We felt certain we had the time to make it over the bridge. As we shared a narrow pedestrian walk way with motocycles and bikes, ten minutes later the deluge was upon us. Fierce biting rain like hail whipped at us as we ran for some shelter. The closest option was a highway overpass. We huddled in with about 200 other drenched and bedraggled Maliennes, trying to wait it out. Surely it would be like summer storm and pass in five minutes? It lasted and lasted, with fresh boughts of wind whipping us, making the collective hiss and groan. There was no possibility of getting one of the taxis to stop for us; they weren’t stopping for anyone. We just had to stand there, shiver and wait like everyone else. Later we would wade through overflowing streets and backing up sewers for a few feet because there was no other way to cross the street. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639557444-3OA5JR86O39W7854Y123/5.jpg Travel Blog - Made in Africa: Mali, Music and Muddled Identities on My First Trip to the Motherland 5 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639557954-9PAN5JVV04FV3WF0AT4A/7.jpg Travel Blog - Made in Africa: Mali, Music and Muddled Identities on My First Trip to the Motherland 7 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639558844-5X55ANRKEU50KPOLUSLD/8.jpg Travel Blog - Made in Africa: Mali, Music and Muddled Identities on My First Trip to the Motherland 8 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639556245-20H4NK6AJNJYA8SUV1D9/2.jpg Travel Blog - Made in Africa: Mali, Music and Muddled Identities on My First Trip to the Motherland 2 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639557052-Y1GVIKRFCBB5CJ675Q1D/4a.jpg Travel Blog - Made in Africa: Mali, Music and Muddled Identities on My First Trip to the Motherland 4a https://www.free-state-kansas.com/travelblog/2011/08/07/postcards-from-the-edge-of-the-crescent-debunking-rebunking-stereotypes-in-morocco monthly 0.5 2024-10-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639562447-YQ75TN6MNFALCIL2H5YR/p1040485.jpg Travel Blog - Postcards From the Edge of the Crescent: Debunking & Rebunking Stereotypes in Morocco P1040485 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639561244-MT6AX52ENBZS5JJDRQ4N/p1040346.jpg Travel Blog - Postcards From the Edge of the Crescent: Debunking & Rebunking Stereotypes in Morocco P1040346 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639560845-ASHKHAC8KBHHWX2YQ9JR/p1040297.jpg Travel Blog - Postcards From the Edge of the Crescent: Debunking & Rebunking Stereotypes in Morocco P1040297 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639563147-TFV2L58TZBLG32YI61C3/p1040536.jpg Travel Blog - Postcards From the Edge of the Crescent: Debunking & Rebunking Stereotypes in Morocco P1040536 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639561945-EM0U768C8RBI9305036P/p10403471.jpg Travel Blog - Postcards From the Edge of the Crescent: Debunking & Rebunking Stereotypes in Morocco P1040347 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639562049-AZR3PJ9FN8VIS0N1N4DF/p1040373.jpg Travel Blog - Postcards From the Edge of the Crescent: Debunking & Rebunking Stereotypes in Morocco P1040373 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639559345-893GUEW9709BPFLTHCPO/img_1047.jpg Travel Blog - Postcards From the Edge of the Crescent: Debunking & Rebunking Stereotypes in Morocco IMG_1047 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639560545-DP5OIXP7FZX6H6G2M82A/p1040267.jpg Travel Blog - Postcards From the Edge of the Crescent: Debunking & Rebunking Stereotypes in Morocco P1040267 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639563147-TFV2L58TZBLG32YI61C3/p1040536.jpg Travel Blog - Postcards From the Edge of the Crescent: Debunking & Rebunking Stereotypes in Morocco https://www.free-state-kansas.com/travelblog/2011/07/09/pilgrims-scallop-shells-the-atlantic-forfeiting-achievement-points-in-the-game-of-life monthly 0.5 2024-12-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639545050-26FD7QTY9MZDQZAM99W9/p10400811.jpg Travel Blog - Pilgrims, Scallop Shells & the Atlantic: Forfeiting Achievement Points in the Game of Life P1040081 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639552144-GOI9OMSOUGPY7669C611/p1040197.jpg Travel Blog - Pilgrims, Scallop Shells & the Atlantic: Forfeiting Achievement Points in the Game of Life There are five pathways through France, and traditionally you start at your house doorstep and walk to one of the starting points, then continue walking the whole way. As you walk, churches and pilgrimage hostels give you simple but heartfelt hospitality. Did I mention you have to walk this thing? Nuns and The Little Star I didn’t know anything about this as I rolled into Moissac, which is apparently a major pilgrim refueling station. Like I said, I was just there for the old world charm. To reward myself for having escaped the ugly and reached the pretty I decided to treat myself with another night inside, this time at a nice hostel. I called one of the hostels listed in my guidebook, run by nuns. It was a tough phone conversation, as I understood very little of what the nun said. An older traveler was sitting next to me in the square and took pity on me, in English. I told her I was going up to the nuns’ hostel, and she said there was a staircase to get there, and did I want to go check it out first to see if I really wanted to do it while she watched my bike? Nah, I said. I’ll be fine on a little staircase. When I rounded the corner I saw two large flights of steps that would be impossible for me to do without taking everything off my bike and making two trips. How can an outdoor street only be accessible by steps? There had to be a road. So I circled around and sure enough found a a steep road leading up to the street I needed to get to. Great, I thought, relieved. This is what travel has taught me, to be resourceful; there is always another way. That’s why I am on this trip, to learn things like that. Now I just had to go across that street, cross the circle, and follow the signs to the hostel. Well, after I got up the hill and across the circle, there were signs for the hostel all right. But the signs pointed straight up another hill that was just as steep and twice as long as the one I had just done. Great. 70k in and my gas tank was running near empty. The guidebook said this hostel had a great view of the river though, and you always have to work for that. Good things take work. That’s why I was on this trip, to learn things like that. See, it was totally worth it! I huffed it up the hill at a slow pace, certain I was having a life affirming experience of great value. When I got to the outer gates of the nunnery, I went through it only to look straight up a winding road at yet another hill. Now you have to be freaking kidding me, I thought. This one was the kind of hill that you know is really steep and long because the path curved around and you couldn’t even see the summit. Some French tourists were just coming down it and they laughed at me. “You are going up there on that? Impossible. Bon Courage!” I weighed the probable pain of biking up this hill against my laziness and cheapness. If I went back down I would have to stay in a hotel, or bike another 2 kilometers out to the campsite. The easiest thing seemed to be to try to get up it. I could even walk it, no one would be around to judge me. Also, I needed to pee now and this would be the fastest route to a bathroom. I started up the hill, and was walking it just a few meters in. Around every turn there was hill. Just more and more hill. Would you like some hill to go with your never ending hill? I was now having difficulty even walking the bike. I would count out twenty steps and then have to stop for a rest. Finally there was a sign for the the hostel. Just a little bit further, it’s worth the pain! the sign said. I’d be the judge of that. Finally I could see the top. There was this statue: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639552644-JFUO73PIYLZQJ3CZQCWD/p1040200.jpg Travel Blog - Pilgrims, Scallop Shells & the Atlantic: Forfeiting Achievement Points in the Game of Life P1040200 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639543345-2OWFGHEHORX83MI9KSWP/p1010984.jpg Travel Blog - Pilgrims, Scallop Shells & the Atlantic: Forfeiting Achievement Points in the Game of Life We’d find out. I had decided to bike it because it would take me to the sea with the least amount of map reading required, and the canal route promised to be flat and shady. Sold and sold. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639546544-BS0LAL218XSHTSOLNUH9/p1040091.jpg Travel Blog - Pilgrims, Scallop Shells & the Atlantic: Forfeiting Achievement Points in the Game of Life https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639551346-W7IJ40DZWFMUUUJRAGZP/p1040168.jpg Travel Blog - Pilgrims, Scallop Shells & the Atlantic: Forfeiting Achievement Points in the Game of Life While pedaling I exchanged the Katy Pery for Echkart Tolle. He had a lot to say on the topic of achievement. Echkart, a deep cat, shat thoroughly all over the idea of achievement. His view is that achievement is a barrier to happiness. In his view achievement is ultimately meaningless because nothing you do can ever improve upon or take away from the hotness that is each of us simply due to the miracle of our improbable existences. Achievement is just something the mind goes after to reinforce its notion of itself as separate and special, possibly able to escape death even, through hyper-vigilance. Achievement makes you cut-off and clingy, and those two states are the roots of any type of unhappiness. I could see his point. I was hell bent on reaching the Atlantic. But every time I thought of how to do it and had to strategize how to finish before my visa ran out, I felt stressed and sick. It was taking me a lot longer than I had wanted it to take. I needed to get there and get there now. And where was my pay off, my life affirming realizations? All I had where scabs on my legs. What a situation! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639554244-SMBWX8UYWT6SM5MK0PLJ/p1040214.jpg Travel Blog - Pilgrims, Scallop Shells & the Atlantic: Forfeiting Achievement Points in the Game of Life P1040214 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639552945-OEY3RMQ4SW6145BZC6WM/p1040202.jpg Travel Blog - Pilgrims, Scallop Shells & the Atlantic: Forfeiting Achievement Points in the Game of Life https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639542145-APUL08UYDX4IYDZAJ3RM/220px-pierre-paul_riquet.jpg Travel Blog - Pilgrims, Scallop Shells & the Atlantic: Forfeiting Achievement Points in the Game of Life https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639542650-9P008S4PF3LQ37WH5UA3/cropped-p10400912.jpg Travel Blog - Pilgrims, Scallop Shells & the Atlantic: Forfeiting Achievement Points in the Game of Life https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639546152-16ZWFQ6XJPV8F2TXI4UV/p1040089.jpg Travel Blog - Pilgrims, Scallop Shells & the Atlantic: Forfeiting Achievement Points in the Game of Life A lady came out to talk to me. She looked me up and down like I might be a serial killer. I said I was the young lady who had called about a bed. She said she hadn’t gotten any call this afternoon. I insisted that I had called. She said would you like to speak English? I said yes, thank you Jesus. We covered the details quickly in English. It turned out this was a different hostel, for Compostella pilgrims. I had missed the entrance of the convent hostel, which was back down the hill. This was a different place, called The Little Star. I don’t know what look must have been on my face right then, but the host said it was no problem, I could stay there tonight anyway, let me get you some water. Grumpy, I sat down with the rest of the crew for dinner. A retired woman and a young lanky teenaged boy were my companions. They were doing this Compostella thing. They explained to me what it was. The retired woman had walked with her pack over 1000 kilometers! Only 400 to go. A sixty year old woman walking 20 kilometers a day while I had a set of luxurious wheels. Perhaps time to quit my bitching. I was treated to an absolutely enormous French meal in five courses and a ridiculous amount of wine. I tried to follow the lively conversation with 3 different French regional accents going on. My dinner companions educated me on the details of the pilgrimage, its origins, routes, rules. Then the retiree showed me her pilgrim’s passport; a small notebook with over fifty different scallop shaped stamps from all the pilgrim hostels she had stayed at. At the end when you get to the church in Spain, you get the final stamp and a certificate of completion. I asked her why she was doing this. Just curious, not hostile. Did she wish to worship? No, she laughed. She was not religious at all. She was doing it just for the doing of it. Hmm. My host had also done the Compostella. She recounted hilarious stories of arriving places much like me: washed up, late, exhausted, desperate for housing, hungry; sometimes being greeted like a leper, sometimes getting a king’s welcome in the most unlikely of places. It was what inspired her to open her own pilgrim hostel. She got back, saw this house with its view, and bought it in one day. It just felt right. My host believed that there were no accidents. We get brought to where we are supposed to be, and I had been brought to the right place that night. The next day two wonderful things happened. When I woke up, the host had cooked me an egg! In France, breakfast is a sad, tiny affair. That morning I had my first egg for breakfast in 3 months. I nearly cried. Then, as I packed up my bike to go, I decided to check out that viewpoint after all. And it was beautiful. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639551850-4W61FSETVT3U2DM0R1F6/p1040195.jpg Travel Blog - Pilgrims, Scallop Shells & the Atlantic: Forfeiting Achievement Points in the Game of Life Jesus Christ The canal was indeed shady, but what I didn’t understand very well from the French guidebooks was that the bike trail was for the first half not much more than a narrow dirt mountain bike path that climbed steadily if gently upwards towards the high point in the middle, where water flowed back out to the sea from both sides. Getting past the middle was for me the beginning of a one day religious experience, one of those less sexy, faith-questioning ones. After a few days of rain and pushing my bike through mud, I had finally reached Toulouse, the middle. The bike path turned dirty, industrial and littered on the way into the city. Toulouse itself was a gray place with little charm. I stayed at a hotel that night as a “treat”, a cheap place by the train station with a dirty bathroom, strange itinerant looking single men, and a room with no windows and a low slanted ceiling. In the morning I decided I was going to book it out of there and put in a long day to get past the sprawl and back into the old world charm. I decided to head to Moissac, about 70k away; it would be my longest day to date. The day started out bad. I was biking out of the industrial butt crack of Toulouse and there was no sign of the charming French countryside I had paid all this cash to see up close and personal. I got lost as per usual; then I self-injured. I had scraped an area about the size of a silver dollar raw on my right shin and it had just started to crust over and heal. While turning back around on a dirty half trail by some abandoned train tracks, I fell and the serrated bike pedal dragged against it, reopening it. I howled in agony, hopping around on one leg like a cartoon character. I was alone and bleeding from a shallow cut and in pain and hopping around in these silly tight shorts, and I hadn’t even gotten out of the city yet. It would have been really funny, if it had been happening to someone else. The only sane response at that point was Katy Perry. I turned my iPod speakers up full blast in the handlebar bag and got back to it. The dirty road out of town was at least nicely paved. Bits of green were poking in from around the light industrial zones, trees and shrubs, and the landscape was slowly bleeding back into the beautiful French countryside. Kilometer after kilometer I left the warehouses behind and began to see horses, farmland, rabbits! I reached Moissac in good time, whose core was an ancient abbey from the 14th century nestled in a square oozing with that good ole old world charm. Yes! It was all starting to maybe possibly feel worth it again. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639548644-1EQDQGHY6QFTMH7FMKF8/p1040146.jpg Travel Blog - Pilgrims, Scallop Shells & the Atlantic: Forfeiting Achievement Points in the Game of Life Last Day Farm land bleeds into village, which bleeds into light industry and then into forest, suburban town, beach. The boulevards widen, the needs of 18th century farmers giving way to the needs of holiday motorists getting to the water. Pine trees smell good even though they are being cut down. Pine wood fences come out of ground littered with faint traces of limestone and now sand. You can start to feel the water in the air. On the other side of this pine hill is a dune, and on the other side of that, my ocean. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639545549-GNIZI1V2Z7RSHS5GFSN8/p1040084.jpg Travel Blog - Pilgrims, Scallop Shells & the Atlantic: Forfeiting Achievement Points in the Game of Life Pilgrimage Since probably the dawn of human history, humans have been drawn in by the idea of pilgrimage. According to Wikipedia, a trusted source, a pilgrimage is a journey of some moral or spiritual significance typically ending at a some sort of holy place. Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus have been in on the pilgrimage gig for the past umpteen thousand years. Usually there’s a great deal of pain and sacrifice involved in getting to these places. It’s never as simple as taking a nice air conditioned bus. So why do people embark on these journeys of voluntary privation? Some do it as a penance. Some to earn a place in the after life. Others do it because there’s actually no other means of transport to get from where they are to where they want to be. Us modern secularist types don’t really have anything that is the equivalent, so we make things up. I had decided to bike across France from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic as a kind of secular pilgrimage. It would help me learn French better, I would see the sights more intimately, I would get in shape, and I would make up for all that cheese-soaked partying I had been doing. But mostly, I wanted to feel like I had earned some badge of honor; that warm feeling in the gut that comes from having achieved something. In the middle of that impossible hill in the exact center of my journey, all these reasons seemed dumb. It seemed like I, and real pilgrims, just liked to go looking for trouble. This may be unwise. But maybe the payoff in the end makes it all worth the pain? Or maybe we should have just stayed our asses at home and worshiped at the perfectly nice church right down the block? I tried to find an answer for myself within the evidence of my experience; and also, of course, on Wikipedia. Canals On the way towards answering this question for myself, I became intimate with another pilgrim, one way tougher than I and long dead. In 1662 Pierre-Paul Riquet, at the tender young age of 63 and after a prosperous and no doubt evil life as a royal tax collector, set out on a personal quest to build a canal that would connect the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. This was a dream held as far back as the Romans that had been looked into and abandoned several times over as wildly impractical. Key obstacles were the route and source of the waters – the rivers of western France flooded too violently to be used for either; and the money – the project was estimated to cost more than the Louis XIV government was spending in one entire year at that time (and those guys were ballers). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639547845-GWJ0YU0RIKXEW555HHXJ/p1040100.jpg Travel Blog - Pilgrims, Scallop Shells & the Atlantic: Forfeiting Achievement Points in the Game of Life P1040100 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639546650-FV90G7S2I8DG2J6V232D/p1040094.jpg Travel Blog - Pilgrims, Scallop Shells & the Atlantic: Forfeiting Achievement Points in the Game of Life Final Haul Back on the road, two thirds of the way there, I still had my doubts about whether or not this whole pilgrimage thing was worth it either in practice or in theory. What if people do these sorts of things just for the arbitrary sense of direction it provides? Riquet knew he wanted to get to the Atlantic, and the way of St. James folks know they have to get to Northern Spain. I had a bike path, even if it wasn’t always paved. When you know you are definitely going to end up somewhere, it makes it a lot easier to move forward. Real life is not so simple. In our ordinary lives we are more like Christopher Columbus – we set out for distant shores with no idea how long we’ll be sailing before we next see land. A pilgrimage then seemed like cheating, an oversimplified way to get some Achievement Points out of the complex Xbox game of life. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639542750-USO9197CIFRA6II3N8LU/jakobsmuschel-150x150.jpg Travel Blog - Pilgrims, Scallop Shells & the Atlantic: Forfeiting Achievement Points in the Game of Life https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639553347-EQVTLTRO2JNGWAPUNDBA/p1040209.jpg Travel Blog - Pilgrims, Scallop Shells & the Atlantic: Forfeiting Achievement Points in the Game of Life P1040209 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639554645-4MGA9LCAESB2GGOZ9NMD/p1040233.jpg Travel Blog - Pilgrims, Scallop Shells & the Atlantic: Forfeiting Achievement Points in the Game of Life P1040233 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639550152-5NELCSSIO7KP1BQVEPGT/p1040153.jpg Travel Blog - Pilgrims, Scallop Shells & the Atlantic: Forfeiting Achievement Points in the Game of Life I could see his point again. There was a part of me I could feel if I was quiet enough and remained unimpressed by anything, including myself. That part just wanted to breathe and look around. When I got lost in the pedaling, that’s when it was easiest to feel that part. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639544445-B5PX1TTJ55HE8BXFYVV5/p1040078.jpg Travel Blog - Pilgrims, Scallop Shells & the Atlantic: Forfeiting Achievement Points in the Game of Life For 100 years the results of Riquet’s pilgrimage ushered in new riches and trade to southern France (and it also took that long for the Riquet family to clear its debts from it and start to turn a profit), but then about 50 years after that the canal was made completely obsolete by the invention of the railroads. Now it is a World Heritage UNESCO site, a playground for gentleman sailors and the world’s most expensive bike trail. Was it all worth it, Riquet? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639551453-X3A2BCAKZRVXPNNW4KVB/p1040182.jpg Travel Blog - Pilgrims, Scallop Shells & the Atlantic: Forfeiting Achievement Points in the Game of Life Getting lost like that also made it easier to see France. France lives up to a lot of its stereotypes, but behind that it is a beautiful country in the same way that India and America are beautiful countries. It has woods and streams, valleys, farmland, rivers. It also has dirty industrial zones, urban sprawl, nuclear power plants. It bled by me as a I pedaled at an easy pace, neglecting to challenge myself at all unless I absolutely had to and singing loudly along to the Glee soundtrack. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639547445-0WRSNLEXMUAN2WUK3T2S/p1040099.jpg Travel Blog - Pilgrims, Scallop Shells & the Atlantic: Forfeiting Achievement Points in the Game of Life https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639548045-HN4NKVE6GCND8QIJS9VP/p1040102.jpg Travel Blog - Pilgrims, Scallop Shells & the Atlantic: Forfeiting Achievement Points in the Game of Life https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639554852-5E5GEBBP942RZ04JKMF3/p1040234.jpg Travel Blog - Pilgrims, Scallop Shells & the Atlantic: Forfeiting Achievement Points in the Game of Life P1040234 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639551050-4288TLP9PHIQL3S6NAL7/p10401571.jpg Travel Blog - Pilgrims, Scallop Shells & the Atlantic: Forfeiting Achievement Points in the Game of Life Echkart also talked a lot about situations, mainly the difference between your life and your life situation. Because of our pesky egos again, our deep habitual patterns of trying to protect our sense of a boundaried, important self, we often mistake our life situation for our actual life. Your life situation is the content of your day. Your bank account balance, your job, your weight, your relationships, your aches and pains, your degrees, your place in the social hierarchy, your illnesses, your challenges, your privileges; your achievements. We mistake these things in our situation for the fabric of our life, but they are not our life. Our life is underneath all that stuff. Our life is our animus and our joy in it, that spark of being here now and aware that is the basic substance of our consciousness. It cannot be augmented or detracted from. It doesn’t benefit from our achievements, and it isn’t tarnished by our failures (there’s also no entry on it in Wikipedia). Our life is always there, steady, underneath the flowers and garbage of our life situation. But most of the time we can’t feel it because we are too busy listening to the voices in our heads constantly cajoling us to go lay a claim on something. https://www.free-state-kansas.com/travelblog/2011/06/24/you-decide-thailand-india-or-france monthly 0.5 2024-10-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639532449-DTYBTUDPEWNZ66FQM0MC/img_1080.jpg Travel Blog - You Decide - Thailand, India or France? IMG_1080 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639529856-5AH6OQFUP7TBH9K9VCWN/3.jpg Travel Blog - You Decide - Thailand, India or France? 3 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639532551-9KMEDK4TN4NDE79390OJ/p1010053.jpg Travel Blog - You Decide - Thailand, India or France? P1010053 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639503044-64CHLR8GYA28SI9THHMJ/cropped-p10102691.jpg Travel Blog - You Decide - Thailand, India or France? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/eb00438e-1a02-4143-8488-7d7d39dff81a/image+%2824%29.png Travel Blog - You Decide - Thailand, India or France? - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639540545-7J8T8MEC9UAGKD62VMHV/p1010991.jpg Travel Blog - You Decide - Thailand, India or France? P1010991 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639542045-X1O4QCGUB52UZON98PZ6/p1040061.jpg Travel Blog - You Decide - Thailand, India or France? P1040061 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639532051-18SF41RKXDWLE06BVY3I/img_1006.jpg Travel Blog - You Decide - Thailand, India or France? IMG_1006 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639530952-L1V3HF5ELCGRZG3N4DBZ/img_0793.jpg Travel Blog - You Decide - Thailand, India or France? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639531251-VLN5QPMS4F7OVJJ8DGAE/img_0817.jpg Travel Blog - You Decide - Thailand, India or France? IMG_0817 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639530544-ACILBCLJBMIJIRP852NB/img_0500.jpg Travel Blog - You Decide - Thailand, India or France? IMG_0500 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639529452-LER5WAVOM0N0BOMRXG0G/207.jpg Travel Blog - You Decide - Thailand, India or France? 207 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639533644-KNABKU9KI5IT3V0QF0MM/p1010434.jpg Travel Blog - You Decide - Thailand, India or France? P1010434 https://www.free-state-kansas.com/travelblog/2011/06/14/sports-camp-vs-band-camp-becoming-bi-camp-ual-on-the-way-to-the-atlantic monthly 0.5 2024-10-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639540844-3F2VJ2WTFIBIRDBB6PJO/p1010992.jpg Travel Blog - Sports Camp vs. Band Camp: Becoming "Bi-Camp-ual" On The Way to The Atlantic The day was redeemed when I hit Le Somail. Le Somail is a quaint little canal port town, and it was the jump off. So this is where everyone was today. This town was a little too swank to sport a campsite, so I stayed at the cheapest hotel I could find. It lacked the previous nights’ charms but had great hosts who kind of adopted me, a retired couple from Belgium who would talk to me back and forth in English and French. I slept through the afternoon and through dinner. When I got up, the hosts of my guest house surprised me with pizza and wine and so I sat with them and we talked in French for an hour or two, and ate great freaking $5 pizza. They told me about their area and I told them about my home town NYC which they had not yet visited. We argued about where the best pizza would be found, here or there. It was was all very gentile. There was also an older gentleman there who seemed really interested in New York and was just learning English. Unlike my hosts who where Belgian, he was local to the area and had lived here and worked the same vineyard as his father and grandfather and great grandfather. Salt of the earth at one point, but now gentleman farmer. We drank his wine as he explained that all the grapes are picked by machine now, but they still have the September harvest party. Then they all joked openly about wife swapping, and teased me about the DSK disaster (which they said was the French equivalent of 9/11, and I think they were serious. That’s how much people dislike Sarkozy here). I was glad I could get the jokes in French. Then the host wife took me into town to get cash. We talked about her son, who is 22 and getting his masters in French and Spanish and will become a teacher. She asked me if I was traveling alone and I said yes. She asked me if I was married and I said no. I was starting to get nervous on where this was going. She asked if I wanted to get married and I said yes, eventually. Then she wanted to know if I would be interested in her son and I laughed and told her how old I was. We spoke in English and that was a nice break. Day 6: Settling Down The next day I woke up to go downstairs and eat breakfast, and the host husband graciously served me breakfast (which in France is just bread and water, btw). We exchanged small talk. He and his wife (who despite her age had a great rack and wasn’t afraid to show it off in low cut blouses) were off to a nudist colony for the day and did I want to join? I politely declined. Then he sat down across from me and said he wanted to explain something to me in English, and asked in advance that I not get offended. Uhoh. He said his friend from last night was a good man, he had known him for ten years and he was 52 and never married. I was starting to get nervous about where this was going. My host explained further that his friend was looking for a wife because he still wanted to have a child, and he was a rich man and when he died he didn’t want all his money going to Sarkozy. Also he was not just looking for sex. So was I interested? At this point I started to blush a lot and tried to giggle it off and say no he was a nice man but I wasn’t interested. But if I could have just averaged the two men on offer (a 37 year old with a Masters, half a vineyard and an E.U. passport, who was only interested in sex half the time), it would have been a go! So that’s Gaul. It’s the opposite of the subcontinent, where all the marriage proposals went to Cody, my male travel buddy. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639539346-T95VMCW7G56UTJ3R6TT9/p1010964.jpg Travel Blog - Sports Camp vs. Band Camp: Becoming "Bi-Camp-ual" On The Way to The Atlantic I believe strongly that there are only two types of people in the world, as defined by how you spent your junior high summers: sports camp people and band camp people. Sports camp people are wholesome, athletic, coordinated and a little mainstream. Band camp people are smart, creative, original and a little kinky. I like sports camp people, but I’m clearly a band camp person. Sports camp and band camp can get along fine when school starts up, but during the summer you can’t be in two places at once. You have to choose. Or do you? I had known of some people who were rare breeds, able to play in both worlds: Bi-camp-uals. They could catch a ball but also cut a rug. They could jog in the morning and practice clarinet in the afternoon. They could wear Abercrombie & Fitch in Gramercy by day, yet do drag with the best of them in Greenwich Village at night. I had met a few of these rare individuals, most of them French Canadians. I wanted to be that kind of person. A solo biking trip in France sounded like just the thing to get me there, but getting ready for the trip made me ornery and made me miss my clarinet. It was a rotten idea on so many levels. I was sporting a bunch of old war injuries and new psychological tics. Left wrist hurts. Left knee clicks. Need two showers a day to feel clean. Can’t sleep with the door open. Don’t really like French people. The equipment is expensive and I hadn’t finished my second draft yet. I was not in shape and had no intention of training beforehand. Plus I would be lonely. I like my alone time but 30 days is a bit much. Bottom line, I was scared shitless. There’s a reason why band camp people don’t sign up for the track team. It’s called fear of humiliation, physical pain and ultimate failure. Excuses, excuses! I was here in France, so time to carpe diem (plus I’d already bought a bike and told everyone I was going)! I did one week of obsessive prep, yet it was all strangely incomplete. I had a device to help me pee standing up if I had to, but no idea how I would ship my bike home. I had a swim cap, but no waterproofing for my bike bags. I had sent my suitcase ahead to Paris, but hadn’t figured out how to get to the start of the ride yet. I had the bike trip planned out to the day on a spreadsheet, but hadn’t tried the bike out yet with everything packed on it. Half of me was going on this trip, and half of me wasn’t. I just hoped the half of me that decided to show up included my quads and glutes. Day 1: Easy Peasy The stubborn side won out. I packed an improbable amount of shit on my bike, and took the train from Montpellier to Sete to start the ride. First day started slow, biked 23km along the beach from Sete to Marsellian Plage into a strong headwind but on a nice paved road. My knees were fine once I geared down. Set up my iPhone speakers in my handlebar bag and it was awesome to bike along the beach listening to the Glee soundtrack, except that while rocking out I lost my bike gloves. I tasted the Mediterranean (guess what? it’s salty) and I will do the same on the other side now when I reach the Atlantic https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639538144-CXMLJIL0MD00N88NYMQV/p1010925.jpg Travel Blog - Sports Camp vs. Band Camp: Becoming "Bi-Camp-ual" On The Way to The Atlantic P1010925 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639539865-OO752IPYX29DRDBF84QJ/p1010985.jpg Travel Blog - Sports Camp vs. Band Camp: Becoming "Bi-Camp-ual" On The Way to The Atlantic P1010985 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639535245-KQB3LNZG1GUTU6RY1OC5/p1010881.jpg Travel Blog - Sports Camp vs. Band Camp: Becoming "Bi-Camp-ual" On The Way to The Atlantic https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639541444-7Y0ORKZPL8NM45FHRDDM/p1010994.jpg Travel Blog - Sports Camp vs. Band Camp: Becoming "Bi-Camp-ual" On The Way to The Atlantic Right then I decided that this day would be a real rest day. I would stay in town and do absolutely no biking, and avoid additional proposals for the day. I needed to get some writing done, so I was sneaking back into band camp for a spell. Insert Pithy Life Lesson Learned Here As Freud sorta said, sometimes a trip is just a trip (and boy did he trip, alot). I guess the big lesson of week one is that some of my fears came true and some didn’t, but we already knew that about all fun & risky things in life. So far I’ve gotten minor injuries, was lightheaded as per usual, got a little robbed maybe, got a little flirted with and some softcore marriage proposals, ate a lot of seafood but not as much as I thought I had ordered, fell twice, was helped alot, was tired and sore, got lost every day, had to stop traffic to rescue my fallen laptop Eddie-Murphy-Coming-To-America style, spent more money than I wanted to and took about a hundred photos. But despite or because of all that, being all Sporty Spice is pretty fun. The actual feeling of rolling along on a bike is meditative, a little strenuous, and makes you concentrate too (to avoid the tree trunks and rocks). A true flow experience. People have been really nice to me too, giving me the right of way on narrow passages, holding open doors so I can bring my bike inside, and I met some fellow bikers who helped me decrease the suspension on my fork so my pedaling is more efficient (at least that is what they said they did—I don’t understand what those words mean). I’m enjoying some jock privileges! So maybe I’m possibly inching closer to becoming an honorary Bi-camp-ual? My daily mileage is pretty weak and I’m still traveling with 2 pounds of skin care products, but I definitely feel a little bit tougher. I think. Maybe not so much “tough” as “sore”. Well, at least it’s nice to admire the enormous calf muscles of all the true sports campers out here leaving me in the dust, knowing just how challenging it is on their side of Lake Titticaca. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639534349-5A170ECKIIDDW8189WXT/p1010878.jpg Travel Blog - Sports Camp vs. Band Camp: Becoming "Bi-Camp-ual" On The Way to The Atlantic Camping was awesome. Hot showers and WiFi. Everything felt good. Exercise high. What was I worried about? This was going to be a piece of cake! Day 2: It’s Getting Kinda Hectic Starting to understand what the words in my French guidebook really meant now. “Dirt road” really translates into “mountain bike trail”. But it was nice to finally reach the Canal du Midi. I will be following this canal trail from the Mediterranean where it starts, across Southwest France to the Atlantic where it lets out. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639537050-VL8GYZAWR1DS8WJ9GIW9/p1010902.jpg Travel Blog - Sports Camp vs. Band Camp: Becoming "Bi-Camp-ual" On The Way to The Atlantic P1010902 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639536944-WF6HKTMU84LBC5WGWS4W/p1010897.jpg Travel Blog - Sports Camp vs. Band Camp: Becoming "Bi-Camp-ual" On The Way to The Atlantic Then I biked 30k along a narrow dirt trail to my final destination for the night. My ass thanked me when I got off the bike for the last time that day. Stayed in a cute town that night, old world charming and with another great campsite. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639538044-2ZVMVZXLJB451ZTY05KT/p1010906.jpg Travel Blog - Sports Camp vs. Band Camp: Becoming "Bi-Camp-ual" On The Way to The Atlantic The French language held up aight. At dinner I thought I had ordered seafood at the seafood restaurant, but got steak instead. But I learned the words for well done and rare. I had wondered why the waitress had asked me if I wanted rare fish. Oh well. Whole day still went into the win column. Day 3: The Empire Strikes Back Woke up with my left hand killing me, so decided to go 5k off trail up to the bigger city of Beziers to get new bike gloves at the bike shop. Guidebook was an absolute mess and full of lies about this part (or I just can’t read French well). Had to cycle by highway and uphill out to the suburbs, then it took me 30 minutes to figure out how to turn around in the heavily trafficked circle. Then, I could not find the entrance way to back to the canal bike path, and had to carry my bike up two flights of steps. I fell and was stared at, but luckily the kids who stared at me then helped me carry my bike the rest of the way up. However I think they stole my water bottle, and they definitely yelled out “nice ass” as I peddled away. All told, got to Beziers at 8:30AM and got out finally at 1:30PM, much worse for wear. Only got 26k down the road out of the planned 48k, mostly due to psychological distress. Also I was now starving. For lunch I ate a whole box of cereal bars, a croissant, two apricots, a banana, a large ham sandwich, and was still pretty hungry. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639538550-K99KJ1JZIWRP2ZAHH1AC/p1010952.jpg Travel Blog - Sports Camp vs. Band Camp: Becoming "Bi-Camp-ual" On The Way to The Atlantic But the canal was beautiful! It feels like there is no civilization around, just beautiful farmlands and french hicks partying their drunk asses off on their little boats. booze cruise Day Four: F*cking Perfect Wrist fine today but now lightheaded and knee pain has switched from left to right side. Doubled up on the iron pills and biked another 30k. Feeling it now in my lungs so gave myself a treat and stayed indoors, in a very cute ancient tower made into a guest house, from the 16th century. Also, a dog tried to be my friend and sat by me at lunch today. She stared me down and intimidated me into dropping half my saucisson which she ate with a very happy tail wag. It was a 12 year old girl black Labrador, and you know how intimidating those kind of dogs can be. Day Five: The Wall Psychologically I was feeling great but physically I was hitting a wall. This was supposed to be a rest day and a short 5k bike ride out to the next campground, however I got lost again on the way there. Luckily, a nice guy and fellow bike tourer helped me out. Between my iPhone and old school useless paper map, his Garmond GPS and his Blackberry, we figured out where the town was. I don’t know how people managed to do this sort of thing before technology! When I got to the campground it was RVs with built-up porches looking like they had been there a long time; less camp site and more trailer park. The vibe was weird and Deliverance-y: no one said hi, no one was home at check in, no nearby stores were open. I had no food or water left but still was creeped out enough to try biking to the next town. It had been a lot of aimless wondering today and no mileage progress or rest. I was walking up short little hills, totally wiped out. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639536744-7F62AIILOEDCPZ4LXY71/p1010889.jpg Travel Blog - Sports Camp vs. Band Camp: Becoming "Bi-Camp-ual" On The Way to The Atlantic It starts in a town called Agde. I got lost there and ended up back at the beach, but that was cool because I got to see right where the canal actually starts. Also met charming drunks and other bike tourers there. https://www.free-state-kansas.com/travelblog/2011/05/19/que-sera-sera-mental-impairment-mudane-tasks-language-learning-in-montpellier monthly 0.5 2024-10-28 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639528950-J8SYR5JFSA12OQZD373F/p1010686.jpg Travel Blog - Que Sera, Sera: Mental Impairment, Mundane Tasks & Language Learning in Montpellier I told myself to take a deep breath. In French I tried to say “I would like it without . . . .” “I would like it without . . .” What is the goddamn word for nuts? I stood there mouth open, waving my hand around in a circle in mid-air, my usual pose when searching for a word. After a few seconds the clerk moved away and handed me my Sunday with a smile. I left the store and tried to eat around the damn peanuts but they were one with the caramel, and then just ended up throwing the whole thing out. Due to the local customs, not much else was open on Sunday in town. Hungry, I boarded the tram and went home. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639526144-MKO6U47T08IXNV7X8CLU/p1010648.jpg Travel Blog - Que Sera, Sera: Mental Impairment, Mundane Tasks & Language Learning in Montpellier https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639523351-NCQJE191HYE1PP1OEBRC/img_0898.jpg Travel Blog - Que Sera, Sera: Mental Impairment, Mundane Tasks & Language Learning in Montpellier May 1st 2011. I had just turned thirty six years old. And I had just walked into a McDonalds, spent four U.S. dollars for soft serve ice cream, failed to express a basic concept even six year olds can articulate, and went home hungry. And so it goes, learning french in France. Ma vie en rose. Very glamorous indeed. Deciding to live in a foreign country in order to learn the language is like willingly signing up for brain damage. That person you were in your native tongue is gone now, and in her place is the special kid with headgear from My So-Called Life. Your clever wit, deep political philosophies, nuances of thought, sarcasm and spunk – inaccessible. Whoever you can be with the vocabulary of a three year old, that’s who you are now. And that’s who I was in Montpellier, France. Small tasks confounded me. Getting money out of an ATM. Joining a wireless network with your iPhone. Ordering a coffee. Buying a train ticket. I had seriously underestimated the time and effort involved in learning the language of Napoleon and Rousseau. People streamed past me in endless conversations and I recognized words here and there, but it was like looking into a store window at pretty shiny things you cannot afford. I started to look at life as a series of timed trial stages. If I could get through each one all right, then maybe I could reach the finish line of French Fluency. Stage 1: The Grocery Story As all language students know, the most important words to learn are the words that make sure you will get to eat. So I wrote down some notes and took my first trip to the grocery story. The store was named Casino, and I was feeling lucky. All the same foods as America, easy to follow the visuals if I couldn’t read the packaging. “Bio” means “Organic.” Even managed to find some lentils (I miss you, India!) and some soy milk (I miss you, Thailand!). I can reach and point and mumble, so I end up with a decent sack of groceries. Then I wander around. I note two things. First, there is an enormous aisle devoted entirely to cheese. Figures. Second, there’s another fairly large aisle devoted to sex toys. They sell sex toys here. In a freaking grocery story. Edible panties. Anal beads. I found that I could read the French on those packages with astonishing clarity. Kinda weird, but so far, so good. Stage one completed! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639524751-RDKKMENZPA1FPYOIC838/p1010632.jpg Travel Blog - Que Sera, Sera: Mental Impairment, Mundane Tasks & Language Learning in Montpellier P1010632 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639523453-0UW20RV3P9RXTMK7NBP2/img_0901.jpg Travel Blog - Que Sera, Sera: Mental Impairment, Mundane Tasks & Language Learning in Montpellier Stage 2: The Doctor’s Office – Success! By the first week in Montpellier I was inexplicably light-headed and dizzy and convinced I was dying of anemia, malaria or the Dehli super bug. So I emailed my travel health insurance provider to try to find an English speaking doctor in my neighborhood. I found one and booked an appointment. Feeling vulnerable, I tried to write down the words for “anemia” and “check my blood iron levels”. I went to see the doctor and sure enough he spoke not a word of English. After much wild gesticulating I managed to get a blood test. At the end of the visit, the doctor joked that he should charge me extra for the translation services. I didn’t think that was funny. Fuck you, asshole French doctor. I eagerly awaited the test results to see what I was dying of. Turns out, my blood was normal. I had a vertigo presenting migraine. Not anemic, just dizzy from trying to speak French all the time. Interlude: The Cell Phone Shop Part I I went in to buy a SIM card and some minutes. They took one look at me and started speaking English. Okay. I spent 40 Euro and they gave me a code and a number to call to activate the minutes, plus taught me how to pronounce the name of my new cell phone carrier. But when I got home & called the number to input my minutes, the instructions were in French. Is everything in French in this country? Stage 3: Walking Around Town – Success! Walking around town is fun and safe, because you don’t have to talk to anyone. Montpellier has alot of old world charm. Cavernous narrow streets capped off with ancient looking arches; dark alleys that open up into secret sunny squares with tons of people drinking roses; outdoor streets with floors tiled like nice bathrooms; ornate iron doorways big enough for giants that lead to secrete sunny inner courtyards; medieval vaulted arches repurposed inside contemporary buildings; Gothic churches turned into art galleries. Montpellier was cool! I listened in on people’s conversations and read the building plaques and inscriptions. Easy peasy. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639524644-0L2AJW6I8J9N9N9ZFO82/img_0939.jpg Travel Blog - Que Sera, Sera: Mental Impairment, Mundane Tasks & Language Learning in Montpellier https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639523750-C343C6PZ7G42ZZGA71ZK/img_0938.jpg Travel Blog - Que Sera, Sera: Mental Impairment, Mundane Tasks & Language Learning in Montpellier Trying out a cheap brasserie frequented by intimidating looking locals. I could now read enough of this menu to know that I didn’t want raw beef, baby lamb, a tiny chicken, stinky cheese or red wine. Thank God there was some Italian food on the menu! “The ravioli with pesto, how big is it?” I ask. The waiter shrugs and says, “I don’t know”. “I’m not very hungry,” I add. “It’s not enormous,” he says. We were talking like grown ups, I suddenly realized. Sitting at the foot of this amazing church with a bright blue sky and a snarky French waiter hovering above me, I did not feel like myself, but I felt less special needs, good even; good enough. Maybe I didn’t need too many words after all. No one knew me here anyway, or who I used to be when I could say more intelligent things besides “can I get the dressing on the side”? Stripped of my social personae, I decided just to enjoy my food, the sunshine, and the silence. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639528252-CZ98DLOD8GXRJ5I4BRGP/p1010682.jpg Travel Blog - Que Sera, Sera: Mental Impairment, Mundane Tasks & Language Learning in Montpellier P1010682 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639526350-J8HLZVR5CBL2OSCH3U52/p1010665.jpg Travel Blog - Que Sera, Sera: Mental Impairment, Mundane Tasks & Language Learning in Montpellier Stage 8: In the Park – Called for Rain! Now I think that guy was smiling at me and trying to talk to me. He definitely said something flirtatious to me. What do I do? Just smile and nod? Okay, I smile and nod. He says something more. Did he just call me a small fish? I dunno. I put my head back in my book and hope he walks away soon. Much easier to flirt with the French instructors than try to deal with the general public. Stage 9: Saturday Market – Success! Markets here in Montpellier are wonderful. Local, organic, artisan. Cheese cases to drool over. Good looking meats that almost tempt me back to the dark side. Delicious sweets. Gigantic fresh looking vegetables. Everyone has got their canvas bag, the market sits under ancient medieval archways, people play this weird local version of bocce ball nearby, and the atmosphere is festive. I walk up to the dried fruits and nuts guy. He’s black so I’m hopeful he will be nice. I have been tagging along with my French host letting her do all the talking but now I am going to buy something on my own! “100 grams of cashews, if you please!”. He gives me a humorous look and doles them out. I pay. As I’m walking away I realize 100 grams is not very much, about a handful. Okay, well he could have tipped me off to that, but at least I got my nuts. Will put that in the win column! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639524949-URXCUULLP1QYPWT5QB4U/p1010645.jpg Travel Blog - Que Sera, Sera: Mental Impairment, Mundane Tasks & Language Learning in Montpellier P1010645 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639529245-0NCS5CYCZHXMTALESUQV/p1010687.jpg Travel Blog - Que Sera, Sera: Mental Impairment, Mundane Tasks & Language Learning in Montpellier Interlude: The Cell Phone Shop Part II I went back to the cell phone shop to ask for some help putting in my minutes. I waited behind some giggling teens buying a Samsung Galaxy. You didn’t have to know much french to tell they were talking about facebook and boys. When I got to the counter the man spoke french with a horrible spanish accent. He insisted he could speak english to me so we went on that way, but I couldn’t understand his english very well either so we went back to french. He checked my phone and informed me that the minutes were already on there. Oh well. Stage 6: Hair Salon – Tie! This was the hardest and highest stakes stage yet. Trying to explain how my hair curl pattern is “4B” and I need something “hydrating” and I have “split ends” so I will need a “trim”, but I wear my hear in a “natural” “afro” so don’t cut too much “off”. I don’t know how much of that I said right or they caught. I do know I walked out hundreds of Euro poorer and with straight hair. Stage 7: Nice Restaurant – Success due to Forfeit! “Can I have some butter?” I ask. “Can I have some butter?” the waiter singsongs back. Is this guy making fun of my accent? I will kill him. I will kill all of France. Once you get tired of mocking my French, you can get back to bending over for the Germans, wise guy. None of the foods on the menu were coming up on my iPhone French-English dictionary. I went for the lasagna. That’s why I eat a lot of Italian food here in France. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639527744-9LMJW0JNFF9W62A7HPST/p1010677.jpg Travel Blog - Que Sera, Sera: Mental Impairment, Mundane Tasks & Language Learning in Montpellier Interlude: The Cell Phone Shop Part III I was out of minutes. I went back to the terrifying cellular shop one last time. The guy kept telling me to go somewhere else to find out what my rates were for SMS. I said, if I can refill minutes here, why don’t you know the rates for what I am refilling? He insisted he didn’t. I asked him then could he tell me when my minutes would expire? He gave me a 30 page booklet that had one page with my precise contract terms, including SMS rates. I said thanks and ripped the page out that I needed and went to leave the shop. He tried to call me back to take the whole booklet. I said, no thanks, I only needed that one page. He asked what he was supposed to do with the rest of it. I said, throw it out the trash that is right there, it’s not a big deal. He said it was in fact a big deal. I walked away pissed at his snark but very pleased the whole thing had gone down entirely in french. The Final Stage: Sunday Brunch – Acceptance https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639526551-IT17K9O3VVFSEBC55SVJ/p1010670.jpg Travel Blog - Que Sera, Sera: Mental Impairment, Mundane Tasks & Language Learning in Montpellier P1010670 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639528151-17O7DFE8ATKD67DQLNB0/p1010680.jpg Travel Blog - Que Sera, Sera: Mental Impairment, Mundane Tasks & Language Learning in Montpellier P1010680 https://www.free-state-kansas.com/travelblog/2011/04/27/pmping-in-paris-lessons-in-transgenics-art-the-art-of-moderation monthly 0.5 2024-10-28 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639504247-X3S7N0T23JXR1472PVQI/michelangelo_dying_slave_detail_hand.jpg Travel Blog - PMPing In Paris: Lessons in Transgenics, Art & the Art of Moderation https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639516449-98CEU7MT0F8L0J862WMS/p1010556.jpg Travel Blog - PMPing In Paris: Lessons in Transgenics, Art & the Art of Moderation Branley was trying hard to make a pedagogical point that I was pre-sold on anyway – that we are all one people and that we are more similar than different. The exhibits were very longitudinal that way. To visit Africa, you had to walk first through Algeria and then slowly through North Africa, through the Sahel, down into Mali, then central Africa and at the end you find yourself in Madagascar (which is positioned close to the start of Asia). The differences in art and artifacts from Mauritania to Mali were slight, and also from Mali to Ghana, from Ghana to central Africa, and so on; until you got to Madagascar which was radically different from Algeria where you started. Progressive. I wanted to go across the whole world like that, gradually seeing the people change into one another. Like that Michael Jackson video, Black or White. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639513348-QS5K1UD53K4LSAF9VMTP/p1010496.jpg Travel Blog - PMPing In Paris: Lessons in Transgenics, Art & the Art of Moderation Life is short. Visit more museums. 14 more euros down today, 18 left to go. Day 3: You Learn Something Every Day By day three I was hurting. I had probably walked, indoors, the equivalent of twenty miles already. I had seen hundred of pieces of art. My eyes hurt, and my brain was nearing capacity But I needed to man up. I could break the back of this Paris Museum Pass today if I put some muscle into it, and from there on out it would all be profit. I started the day off at the Centre Pompidou Musee National D’art Moderne. This was all the later 20th century stuff that the MO didn’t have with it’s focus on with it’s hard on for impressionists. Your Matisse, Picasso, Klee, Kandinsky, Dali, Bacon, etc. etc. Pomidou is a gorgeous structure where the architects decided, in order to make more room for the paintings, they were going to put all the air ducts and vents and pipes and other HVAC stuff on the outside of the building, instead of in the walls. And here’s what that looks like: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639521144-PD5YX5FQSAW4O5Z6QENI/p1010610.jpg Travel Blog - PMPing In Paris: Lessons in Transgenics, Art & the Art of Moderation Can’t handle this right now. Need something peaceful. Okay, how about the exhibit on the ocean. Oh noes. 20 foot screens and you stand in the middle of it and they press the flush handle. Like being underwater, surrounded on all sides with sound and panoramic video. Too trippy. Did you know it takes 550 years for a particle of water to travel through all the gulf streams and get all the way around the world? And, each square kilometer of ocean thought to contain 120k bits of plastic. How do we get that all out? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639510452-HC3QL1OO9K9OSKW2P3RU/p1010445.jpg Travel Blog - PMPing In Paris: Lessons in Transgenics, Art & the Art of Moderation My favorite room was the Gustav Mahler exhibit. He’s actually a composer, not a painter but they had the score to one of his works laid out in its entirety in glass cases along the wall. So you could read through it in order as the music also played over head. Above that, they had playbills, portraits, photographs and work by artists inspired by him. Had lunch in a 18th century ballroom that was like out of Regency romance novel. A little girl having birthday lunch with her dad next to me, Australians on a father-daughter birthday trip. Dad & I talked about my trip – he had done the same sort of thing at the same age as me, bored with his job as a food photographer (which on paper sounds just about as awesome as a video game marketer). After the trip he realized he actually liked his job and went back to it. Hmm. We commiserated about India, while his daughter rolled her eyes in embarrassment the whole time (it’s true, parents are so embarrassing!). I talked to the daughter about what trainers she was hoping to pick up. Then I ate my ten dollar slice of apple pie. I would have spent 18 euros to do all that without the PMP. 32 euros to go; an okay start. Day 2: Hype & Hyperbole The next day I decided to do the Musee Rodin, cause I’d always claimed that Rodin was my favorite sculptor. There were many beautiful and graceful pieces there, set amidst a well manicured garden. I happened to wander around one corner and there was that famous guy on the toilet, The Thinker. I didn’t know that was done by Rodin, nor that it was here. Bonus. I had to break my rule and I took a picture of it. This was great! I was getting culture. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639512045-9DFA0LANCSQQWOZUXAB9/p1010476.jpg Travel Blog - PMPing In Paris: Lessons in Transgenics, Art & the Art of Moderation Oldenburg, Rauschenberg, Giacometti. Wait a minute. Giacometti. Nice sculptures. There’s that one I liked so much from art class. I always thought that was Rodin. But I guess it’s actually Giacometti. So I guess that means all this time my favorite sculptor was actually Giacometti, and not Rodin. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639519847-30FE77VMRNY5NU4EX2IG/p1010599.jpg Travel Blog - PMPing In Paris: Lessons in Transgenics, Art & the Art of Moderation Music museum. Great architecture but, cannot figure out how to get into this thing. I’ve tried four or five different entrances and the people inside just smile and nod. Guess what? It’s closed! I can’t read French so good. Damn. I really needed that 9 euro entrance fee. Press on. Cite Des Sciences et De L’Industrie, the science museum. Approaching it. What’s this? A Geodome? An exhibit on the history of science fiction? A planetarium? Where have you been all my life? And why did I save you for last, when I have zero braincells left? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639518752-NPDHKE4D6B3VY54W7WUN/p1010575.jpg Travel Blog - PMPing In Paris: Lessons in Transgenics, Art & the Art of Moderation I wanted to spend more time there, there was so much to see and do, but I was about to pass out just after walking through Africa. But the good news was, I was down to 4 euro. Tomorrow I would finally start to make a profit on my Paris Museum Pass. The finish line was in sight. Day 4 – Wiping Out & Geeking Out – 8 Euro profit! Can’t get out of bed. Exhausted. Feet hurt. Late start. Have to stay close to home. What’s local? Music museum. Science museum. Cool, let’s go. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639521845-J3A00EIOJ1CUY474FDOL/p1010613.jpg Travel Blog - PMPing In Paris: Lessons in Transgenics, Art & the Art of Moderation Run, run screaming from museum. Taxi back home. Collapse into sweet oblivion. But thank God this museum was super expensive. Am now at 8 euro profit! Lessons Learned? The next day brought full mental, emotional, physical and spiritual collapse. Covers over the head in the middle of the day, drooling and rocking. To borrow a favorite phrase from a friend of mine, I went full retard. Please Dear God, no more learning adventures. Well, I’d been very productive and thrifty; and I’d amassed a lot of facts about impressionists, Egyptians, the Ewe tribe, transgenic mice, the human genome and the French military; but had I actually learned anything? After I woke up again 24 hours later and got done icing my calves, I tried to see if I had any profit besides that 8 euro out of my Paris Museum Pass orgy. First thing: bring your kids to Paris. Or just to the best museums in your town. There was nothing I had ever studied or wanted to study that wasn’t wonderfully brought to life by some Paris museum. It was such geeky fun. There’s no topic so boring that it can’t be made super-cool with life sized dioramas, reenactments and lasers. Second: there is no need to see everything. There were many more museums I wanted to go to in Paris. Saint Chapelle, the holocaust museum, the museum of the Arab world, the haMiddle Ages with the real ancient bath house, the cinema museum, the inside of the Pantheon, Fountainbleu, Versailles. But I will not be buying another museum pass. Next time, I’ll just go to one museum and fully savor it. In fact, from now on I am going to be as proud of the things I don’t do on this trip as of the things I do. It’s time to admit: I went to Wat Po and didn’t see the world’s largest reclining Buddha! I went to Hampi and didn’t do sunrise on the east hill! I went to Rajastan and skipped the desert! I went to Delhi and did not see the Red Fort! I did not climb the towers of Notre Dame! I’m changing that laziness headline to one of good taste and restraint. Yes! I am wise enough now to enjoy missing out. So thank you, Paris Museum Pass. You gave me blisters on my feet, but you also taught me that although life is short, it takes the stress off to assume you’ll live to see another day (even if strictly speaking you have no idea if that’s actually true). So no more all you can eat buffets. No more gold card passes. No more bucket lists. Nothing’s going out of style, here. Even if we could see it all, there’s no way our tiny rat brains could process it all anyway. Next time I’ll save a ton of money and have even more fun by doing next to nothing at all. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639509950-2WAJ6ACP1YSYTEHN3SBP/p1010440.jpg Travel Blog - PMPing In Paris: Lessons in Transgenics, Art & the Art of Moderation Paris is an expensive city, and since I have no job I thought should try to find ways to economize. I considered couch surfing, but every potential host I saw on that site was some crusty looking dude whose couch I would not want to lie on in my undies, especially not in the middle of the night. I thought about self-catering: you know, eating out of supermarkets from the frozen aisle section and those tasty prepackaged white bread sandwiches you find in drugstores. No, too sad in the city of a thousand cheeses. I even thought about relying on public transportation, elbowing my way through rush hour with the rest of the baguette toting sans-culottes. After all, no one could beat me now in a shoving match after eight weeks in India. But after eight weeks in India, my heart rebelled against any and all cost savings measures. Goddamit I just survived India where I ate my weight in cheap chapati and had been dirty and uncomfortable to some degree every single day. I needed to be fully embraced in the warm bosom of western civilization, with all its attendant creature comforts. Hell, I needed to freaking motor-boat that thing at this point. I needed taxis, I needed super hot showers, I needed salad greens, I needed steak and a glass of red wine or three, I needed much better hand lotion. All the things that it cost beaucoup d’argent to acquire in Paris. A whole bunch of penny pinching was not in the cards, then. But I could make one concession. I could economize on one aspect of this long weekend. I could buy a PMP: the legendary Paris Museum Pass. Ironically, after surviving eight weeks in India, it was the thrifty PMP that pretty much broke me. * Here’s the deal. Paris is a city known for its amazing museums. You got an urge to learn about something, Paris has a museum for it; and the Paris Museum Pass grants its bearer nonstop unlimited entry into any of these 60 museums and monuments. With this carte d’or you can line jump like P.Diddy at the Arc De Triomphe, the royal palaces, Versailles, the Louvre, a few soaring avant garde testaments to modernism, some churches even; and generally run amok VIPing it up all over town. How much would you expect to pay for this incredible experience? 150 euro? 100 euro? 75 euro? No! Now, for the low low price of 50 euro you too can experience this once in a lifetime grant of access, power and privilege, and for four whole days! But wait! There’s more! The more part for me turned out to be some bad math. Now that I was out of rupees, I was no longer hood-rich. 50 Euro, well that actually ends up being something like 73 dollars. 73 dollars to go to the museum? I don’t think I spent 70 dollars in two weeks in India. Now I didn’t feel so smart. But I was going to make this work. In four days, I would go to as many museums as I could. At the bare minimum, calculated by what the entrance fees would have been, I resolved to make at least 1 euro profit off my purchase. It was off to the races! Day 1: Head Explosion & Aftermath I decided to start at the center and work my way outward. First stop had to be the mother of all museums, the Louvre. I had been there before and been destroyed by this museum. Unable to get out of the ancient Sumerian section. The vastness just too much for me to get my head around. This time I would do a quick run by the greatest hits in antiquity sculpture and then take down all of renaissance painting. Furthermore, I would take no pictures in this museum. Everything in the Louvre already had a million fucking pictures of it; I’d just download some when I got home. (Note to tourists everywhere: please stop taking pictures of yourself in front of famous works of art. Your mug, or heaven forbid you imitating the poses in the artwork, does not improve the view). That would save me hours I could plow back into another museum. But it was amateur night at the Apollo for me on day 1. Stopped to read a few info placards and then never made it to paintings. Got totally sandtrapped in Ancient Egyptians, and then had to stop to stare at the Michelangelos for the rest of the afternoon. The Louvre was like a house where the people were on vacation – or maybe they had disappeared mysteriously in their prime and left all their treasures out. What does a once great people, now ancient and extinct, leave behind? First of all, their laws, written in stone. Second of all, really large portraits and statues of themselves. (The Egyptian king always shown as an extra large man but what if that had been literal, not symbolic? Now that would be great surprise archeological find. And then there was Michelangelo. His slave dying statue was juxtaposed against alot of cold Greco Roman sculpture in the hall before, and it was great placement because it allowed you to directly experience the break between classical and renaissance for yourself. Same styles and materials as the Romans, but Mickey manages to make it erotic, intimate, attenuated, the usual expression of Greek detachment transformed into sleepy common sensuality. The greek statues are largely naked but the slave statue is partially clothed, undressing himself, kinda touching himself really; pretty sexy for the sixteen hundreds. Looking at this statue, there’s no way in hell Michelangelo was not seriously doing – or trying to do – whoever that model was. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639514052-JJMD79LT0S6DYT99LISP/p1010505.jpg Travel Blog - PMPing In Paris: Lessons in Transgenics, Art & the Art of Moderation But on the way out, I eavesdropped on a conversation that killed my buzz. Two teenage girls were leaving at the same time as me, American accents. I was prepared to be stunned by their ignorance, but it was the opposite. “I liked the thinker and all”, the one girl said, “but there were other great sculptures there. Why is that one famous and not the others?” Good question. It does seem pretty arbitrary. Does the mere act of someone important saying “this is genius” actually make something genius? And why do we all crowd round and believe it, rather than trust our own eyes? How many statues were lying around Rodin’s studio that he threw out as rough drafts or pieces of crap that might have been indistinguishable to us in quality from any of these others? What makes something museum worthy? And if museums and their contents have questionable worth, why was I spending so much time in them? Is there an art scholar or cultural historian in the house who can answer me? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639511545-BOMGT2ACOOYR0ZRN5B7J/p1010465.jpg Travel Blog - PMPing In Paris: Lessons in Transgenics, Art & the Art of Moderation Against the backdrop of all the 17th century imperial architecture of Paris, this building punches you right in the eye. But I hadn’t paid 73 dollars to look at the outside of buildings. Onward! Inside the Pompidou, I was too cheap to pay for the audio tour (4 euro, outrageous). Instead, I snuck to the back of a group on a school trip, a bunch of kids and their teacher. The teacher was explaining a painting to them, but it was like being in college. It was an ugly painting of a woman with very mannish features, painted in about 1941. The teacher broke down the socio-political context of the art: how when the men went off to war women took on traditionally male jobs and how society’s discomfort with that was reflected here; also symbolized by the woman smoking and drinking, male pastimes at that time; and how the woman is deliberately painted to be unattractive and confrontation. Wow! I’m like “Lady, these kids are nine years old”. Is this why French people always seem so goddamn pretentious? Meanwhile, behind the teacher there was a very vulgar nude with some full frontal hairy bush that all the kids were surreptitiously taking pictures of with their phones and giggling about. Good to know kids are basically the same everywhere. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639512344-EGGTY2FTJFIPHJSTOWJW/p1010487.jpg Travel Blog - PMPing In Paris: Lessons in Transgenics, Art & the Art of Moderation I felt something in there. Some thrill down the leg, some sense of reverence and honor to be near the remains of the great Emperor Napoleon. But what with the twelve 50 foot high stern statues circling his enormous tomb, I supposed that’s what the building was designed to make you feel. Man, this guy died pimp. His dead crib was one thousand times more pimp than my live crib would ever be. Even still, I bet that guy would’ve traded places with me right then. Nothing he ever did in life saved him from the fate of being a dried up corpse. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639523251-O76IUBQSB79SVL57JGWX/walking-man-alberto-giacometti.jpg Travel Blog - PMPing In Paris: Lessons in Transgenics, Art & the Art of Moderation I was losing it but I had to press on. Next stop, the Musee de quay Branley. At the foot of the Eiffel Tour, the Branley is Paris’ colored people’s museum – it features art and artifacts from the rest of the world (Asia, Africa, Oceania, Latin America). Masks and oracles and totems and bones and videos conjuring up animal spirit selves and that sort of thing. This museum would be scary at night. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639515551-4PFE50JP2EP6UYTZBCJO/p1010529.jpg Travel Blog - PMPing In Paris: Lessons in Transgenics, Art & the Art of Moderation Anyway, my faith was shaken. I decided to do more of a monument next, the Musee de L’Armee, where Napoleon’s tomb is. Napoleon’s tomb is housed in a kind of double chapel. One chapel is dominated by the tomb which is literally a huge hole in the first floor that takes up 90% of the room, containing a casket the size of Gibraltar in the center. In the middle of the building is an alter, and on the other side, a mirror image chapel but without the big hole in the floor. Napoleon’s tomb is bigger than the statue of Christ on the alter. You have to take a wide circle around Napoleon to get to Jesus Christ. And by the time you get around Napoleon and on to Christ, you’re kinda underwhelmed by the JC. So someone had a big ego. There’s one door to the chapel that royals entered in through, then that central alter, and on the other side in the mirror image chapel a separate entrance for the soldiers. This was so heads of state and commoners could worship together, but not “together” together. Eventually they just built a wall down the middle of the center alter, so they couldn’t really see each other, either. D’oh! Guess that’s why they had to have a revolution do-over in 1848. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639520456-8ANZDQVQOLRN0HP3JSN3/p10106011.jpg Travel Blog - PMPing In Paris: Lessons in Transgenics, Art & the Art of Moderation Too many choices. Argh. Okay, let’s check out the human genome. Oh shit, they have transgenic rats in here. Live ones. They are so cute. I could never cut one of those up, not even for cancer research. People would have to die instead. Now here’s a bunch of dead rats encased in plastic with their transgenic properties listed beside them. I can’t read the French so good. I think it says “super liver”. And this one is “huge penis”. Here’s “tiny brain”. And this one is “extra affectionate”, I think. Put that all together and you’ve got my ideal man. This shit is cold, though, their little dead bodies laid out for our amusement. One day that could be us, frozen in plastic display cases while some alien race ponders the success of its experiments crossing humans with dairy cows. https://www.free-state-kansas.com/travelblog/2011/04/10/last-call-udaipur monthly 0.5 2024-10-28 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639501148-FLVEQXA3EKPA6V8I2ZS2/5.jpg Travel Blog - Last Call: Udaipur Official is not official here, really; so some guards opened up a closed museum for us lakeside and thousands of women poured in to the haveli style classic architecture to take up places on the balconies and rooftops and watch the ceremony below. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639501653-ZLKYOH626TTFDE9Z2YW8/6.jpg Travel Blog - Last Call: Udaipur The king sailed his boat out in front of the ghat and made his royal appearance (he lives in the city palace here). There were women dancing with bowls of fire on their heads to sexy tabla music; and then some guys in drag shaking it; and finally fireworks ear splittingly close to us. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639496449-GJFAKZ7AA5NYQH0689EF/2.jpg Travel Blog - Last Call: Udaipur Mewar is a spring festival centered around girls and women. Every night for three nights in a row, all the ladies and girls in town get dressed up in their best and join a procession down to the lake ghat (steps) to honor the Gods and pray for good marriages and fertility. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639497645-OZXZKRGZPVWHE3SZ2YBE/3.jpg Travel Blog - Last Call: Udaipur It was amazing to see so many women together. In India walking down the street you sometimes get the impression that the country is mostly men. In the service industries around tourism it is mostly men you encounter. Women lag men here by double digits in education and literacy, and seem to be confined to private spaces, making dosas. But here for the Mewar festival, they were out in all their glory. The energy from the 90% female crowd was friendly and reserved. No one shouted out “Obama!” at me; I was just a part of the crowd, just another woman out to see what the Gods could do for her tonight. Occasionally someone would jostle me or a child on someone’s shoulder would pull my hair, but this did not feel like special foreigner treatment. I felt at ease. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639497344-ZC2Y2U6FW0J2CQVWXJ8L/22.jpg Travel Blog - Last Call: Udaipur I was reminded of a major theme in India Calling. India Calling is a book by an Indian American guy (ex NYT foreign correspondent for Mumbai) who comes to live in India as an adult for the first time; it’s his take on both the paradoxes of his mission to know India as an insider, and the paradoxes of a not-quite-there-yet aspiring superpower growing into its own. Part of Giridharadas’ thesis is that traditional Indian thinking lacks this western ideal of the universal; everything, especially morality, is context and caste sensitive. There is no effort to reduce the world into a set of easily understood, always applicable rules. The heterogenity of the Hindu God system illustrates this. This is frustrating for a Western reductionist like me, but it explains a lot of what happens here. Right now it explained to me why after all towns and thalis even at the last I couldn’t seem to locate India. While I felt I “got” Thailand, there was no “getting” India. It was perhaps not a worthwhile exercise to attempt to reduce one billion people into some sort of national identity or gestalt. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639501551-8I0FT5BX6JZVJL4LDV3T/51.jpg Travel Blog - Last Call: Udaipur Goodbye for now, India. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639498444-Q0I4416L2NZHPWCLJJ82/31.jpg Travel Blog - Last Call: Udaipur 3 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639497045-R2TFMG2Q4L8T02INEHN8/21.jpg Travel Blog - Last Call: Udaipur 2 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639500848-3V5T0PCB6LS4AVE512IL/42.jpg Travel Blog - Last Call: Udaipur Us humans are perverse. Sometimes the only time you feel at home is right when it’s time to pack up and leave. On the way out we often wonder – did I make good use of my time here? And so I also wondered – had I seen India, the real and complete India? I tried to make a list of all the places I had been to. Hyderabad. Mysore. Madikeri. Belur. Dharamshala. Mangalore. Palolem. Panjim. Mumbai. Lonavla. Jaipur. Agra. Haridwar. Rishikesh. Dehra Dun. Shimla. Chandigarh. Dehli. And finally now Udaipur. Did these places have anything in common? Was there anything about all these places that made them Indian? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639502545-903PP0211EMRVKH6REDN/8.jpg Travel Blog - Last Call: Udaipur 8 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639499345-Q5NIO7MGG3MLF292RODS/41.jpg Travel Blog - Last Call: Udaipur 4 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639496252-D76Z6A6V1XY79YF16HAR/12.jpg Travel Blog - Last Call: Udaipur So there’d be no finding of ultimate India here in Rajastan. But Udaipur gave me something better, a feeling of being at home, which I had only gotten close to at the very beginning of the trip on the borrowed love of my friend’s warm family in Hyderabad. I was proud I could get to the point of feeling at home on my own somewhere in India, but it also made me feel quite sad. How would I like my new country of France? Would I be able to get decent dosa for breakfast if I happened to wake up nostalgic and wanted that one day? Would I be chilly all the time? Would I be horrified by the beef eating and the wine consumption? Would I embarrass myself by haggling prices in local shops and in taxis? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639499148-KZZZ7B50TQXBLJWOYQVA/4.jpg Travel Blog - Last Call: Udaipur I localed out in kurta and tights and joined the procession down to the river. Getting in the midst of a bone crushingly dense Indian crowd was not something I thought I'd ever do at the beginning of this trip, but now I felt comfortable being swept along and not knowing precisely if I would get trampled and die by the end of it. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639496152-OFVG3C02TEYPN0GZBYUW/11.jpg Travel Blog - Last Call: Udaipur 1 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639495752-PNY8USY6CNEO9XBJU5KW/1.jpg Travel Blog - Last Call: Udaipur I stopped in Udaipur. It was over and I had to deal with that. No point cramming more temples and palaces in. As Otis Redding sang, “if you don’t know me by now . . . ” So I decided to just hang out in Udaipur and wait to see what might happen at the end. * The first thing to happen was Mewar. * https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639498650-616S78RSKRHCDELE71D0/32.jpg Travel Blog - Last Call: Udaipur Damn you, Udaipur. Why did you have to be all shiny and romantic and awesome when I was trying to detach myself from this place? Where are the mounds of garbage, the dirty air, the starving street children, the rude rickshaw drivers, the crazy traffic, the stifling heat? Either these things were gone or I failed to notice them anymore. Maybe I could make out India better now, now that I couldn’t see that foreground stuff so clearly. Or maybe India is something you can only see clearly once it starts to hit the rearview mirror. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639501753-L71BCQK5FLXEDHB37OQQ/7.jpg Travel Blog - Last Call: Udaipur 7 https://www.free-state-kansas.com/travelblog/2011/04/09/interlude-m-night-shyamalans-signs monthly 0.5 2024-10-28 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639503444-6VEVQ3K0OCQ7AZPR324P/img_0877.jpg Travel Blog - Interlude: M. Night Shyamalan's Signs And https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639506051-BVA3TQLHC2TLD2P0TUPG/p1010234.jpg Travel Blog - Interlude: M. Night Shyamalan's Signs And https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639508544-TP939NV8SIHMKAB5L3P7/p1010408.jpg Travel Blog - Interlude: M. Night Shyamalan's Signs And https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639505651-88EMBYTG2T175HB3FHCX/p1010221.jpg Travel Blog - Interlude: M. Night Shyamalan's Signs And https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639504044-NT91ND7RTNFLD3Q8OX5G/img_0878.jpg Travel Blog - Interlude: M. Night Shyamalan's Signs and finally, my personal favorite https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639507848-S5I7N6QHYRTCDI7WJCMI/p1010267.jpg Travel Blog - Interlude: M. Night Shyamalan's Signs And https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639506845-5M6MWLCVQNA0BEQYFHQ3/p1010252.jpg Travel Blog - Interlude: M. Night Shyamalan's Signs English is not India's first language. Therefore English language signs in this country can range from the ridiculous to the sublime.For example https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639507053-2ICMEPXVV7Q87SSRWKUM/p1010253.jpg Travel Blog - Interlude: M. Night Shyamalan's Signs And https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639505552-NR5MTOOT3KHYVSFY6TRF/p1010203.jpg Travel Blog - Interlude: M. Night Shyamalan's Signs And https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639506150-73YFJDDOEUBEMTOB23ZR/p1010249.jpg Travel Blog - Interlude: M. Night Shyamalan's Signs And https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639508448-3GP0SRXOB66G81US9E2F/p1010269.jpg Travel Blog - Interlude: M. Night Shyamalan's Signs https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639507345-2N8VSDRVHXI2VJ19LV2W/p1010266.jpg Travel Blog - Interlude: M. Night Shyamalan's Signs And https://www.free-state-kansas.com/travelblog/2011/03/28/india-part-2-capturing-what-im-not-capturing monthly 0.5 2024-10-28 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639494853-63TZS5EUJTE9GMBEZ6K7/p1010139.jpg Travel Blog - India Part 2: Capturing What I'm Not Capturing P1010139 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639495551-3BGAEJBCO9LS2X59GQSF/p1010160.jpg Travel Blog - India Part 2: Capturing What I'm Not Capturing P1010160 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639491748-0QK6DVQPSAKKVK3QU1US/img_0874.jpg Travel Blog - India Part 2: Capturing What I'm Not Capturing Once again I find myself in deep water, bodysurfing whitewater rapids on the Ganges and the waves are coming in over my head. That's India for me right now. India is rolling over me and I'm trying to catch up, trying to capture what I'm not capturing cause it's happening so fast.What I'm not capturing is . . .Things built up but not thought out, ugly and inelegant. Half finished bridges off half finished highways. “New” bottles of water that are old bottles of water that have been resealed. Children breaking rocks with sledgehammers at the side of the road. Copy cat hotels with the same name and the same misspelled “reccomended by Lonly Planet” signs. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639492545-18TQRVWAXVPAQAIY2J4U/p1010032.jpg Travel Blog - India Part 2: Capturing What I'm Not Capturing desert states.Incense, chanting and prayer anytime and anywhere; and a hundred signs for every type of yoga imaginable. Wandering holy men playing cricket. World cup quarter finals wins celebrated with homemade fireworks. “Fixed price” bargained down with “no problem” and “final price”. Signs that don't translate well into English, unintentionally hilarious. Orange and purple and pink and red saris all in a row. Street food that doesn't make you sick. Desperately looking for good dosa in the North. Hot chapati https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639492845-QA50QD08SVCYMCF300GR/p1010085.jpg Travel Blog - India Part 2: Capturing What I'm Not Capturing people, standing for hours on a long distance bus. Temples that have shopping stalls in them. Taking off your shoes to get into a holy place and then coming back with feet dirtier than your shoes are. Nothing is cleaned, just swept. Swept under the rug, swept away with brooms that look like hand dusters, harder than it has to be. Hotel employees who work 12 hours a day every day sweeping dust right past you and on you, watering right on you as they water the plants, as if you are just part of the scenery and they could care less. Ricks that drive right into oncoming traffic as if they could care less, about your life or their own.Being quoted silly prices and then when you walk away having people chase you down the street offering same thing at half. Everytime you ask for directions being told to "go straight" and then "ask anyone". Flies around cow dung and open urinals in pilgrimage towns. Hungry children demanding chapati and selling balloons. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639492247-CGYLE2TDCOW52A8JCCQ6/img_1027.jpg Travel Blog - India Part 2: Capturing What I'm Not Capturing IMG_1027 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639493245-U00776AODR0GOARQ17EW/p1010122.jpg Travel Blog - India Part 2: Capturing What I'm Not Capturing P1010122 https://www.free-state-kansas.com/travelblog/2011/03/09/163 monthly 0.5 2024-10-28 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639488444-N74DUQ8DXOBS8QW998GD/img_0712.jpg Travel Blog - Trains, Planes & Automobiles (plus Ricks, Boats, Propeller Planes & Scooters) – Getting Through India One Kilometer at A Time As the train got more crowded, a different conductor came by several times and a unique incident played out over several rounds. He checked my ticket and remarked this was not my seat. I decided to flex on him as a foreign female and said there were no seats available in my car, and then just broke eye contact and continued reading my book. This worked and he never bothered me again. The next time he came back, though, an older more prosperous Indian gentleman was with him. He wanted to sit down and a younger, darker, skinnier dude was in the seat he thought was his. He spoke curtly to the man in Kannada, and the guy got up without a protest and gave his seat. Later in the ride Mr. Big Shot tried this out with a fellow in our row that had the window seat, and he easily got that seat given up for him too. As far as I could tell, everyone on this train in third class was just sitting exactly where they wanted regardless of official seat, and the only time the conductor had checked seat numbers was when this fancy guy came through. The people next to us in the other berth didn’t have their tickets checked. I didn’t have my ticket checked. Only the guy in the seat that this man wanted. So that’s how it’s going to be, India. The train ride had some familiar acts. Like on my last train ride, people played tunes from their tiny phone speakers as music for the ride (I had already tried my iPhone out for this – apparently western market phones didn’t have speakers pimped especially for this purpose). The chai man came by and I loaded up on a couple of those for 5 rupees each. What a welcome relief. Everyone passed over the fried pakoras but most had some of this thing that looked like puffed rice mixed with salsa. Aggressive hijras (Indian transvestites) came to beg and if you didn’t give, they snapped their fingers loudly in your face and walked off with the kind of fierce attitude that would have made RuPaul proud. The views from third class were much better, unmediated by glass with wide open windows and doors to the passing countryside. I mourned my lack of camera as we were passing over some “oh wow” scenery moments that even the weary looking denizens of third class seem transfixed by. We also passed through what had to be subsistence farming villages, sad looking dry farms and blink-and-you-miss them crowded strips of villages lining the rail tracks. I didn’t see any water. At one point Cody and I had mused – why are all the trains in India always so overbooked and crowded? Where the heck were all the people on the train always going to? I got it now – they were getting the heck out of these dried up, nowhere villages. People in third class sleeper just seemed tired. Except for one little girl who was bouncing up and down and sometimes staring at me shyly, then laughing (the way little girls around India had been doing all month). Her dad was playing with her and seemed utterly in love. We shared a smile at her antics. This seemed like a kind of parent you would find anywhere, willing to do anything for their child. Yet her mom looked tired and slept most of the way. Looking at their faces, as brown as mine, I felt humbled and sad. This is 20% of humanity and this is life – it’s not much, people are working hard, they care about their kids but probably can’t do much for them, and you can see the everyday difficulty of it in their faces. I didn’t think this little girl would end up as fortunate as my quiz-making teenage friend. I felt a sense of the scale of the human project going on in India and in the world, and I wondered if how many on this train were going to make it to their hoped for destination. Musical Interlude: Vomit The overnight bus ride to Mumbai was something I was dreading but it turned out to be quite nice. Comfortable, clean, well air conditioned, pimp reclining seats, not that much motion, and I slept 8 out of 15 hours of it. My group of Spanish traveling girlfriends didn’t do so well, however. One was throwing up in loud gurgling bursts from 6PM to 12AM, frequently pulling the bus driver over for mercy stops. After giving her my stash of Roll-Aides, Imodium and a Xanax, I pulled a fleece over my face to cut the smell of throw up and went to sleep like the rest of the Indians on the bus. When I woke up at 8AM, she and her friends were mysteriously gone. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639489844-5E00VFWQ2ZJQEJDHOLA9/img_0742.jpg Travel Blog - Trains, Planes & Automobiles (plus Ricks, Boats, Propeller Planes & Scooters) – Getting Through India One Kilometer at A Time India is huge. Huge. Every morning I wake up and I am amazed that I am still in India. On the beach. India. Pristine forest. India. Organic cardamom farm. India. Deserted ancient grassland city. India. Rolling green valleys – yep, still India. Ancient Royal palaces, megalopolises, shanty scuzzy little villages, bucolic farmland, sequestered family compounds, high tech office parks, tiny little European style mission cities. India, India, India! It’s like one of those tall hedge mazes in an English garden – you just can’t find your way out of this shit. And I still have a lot to go in this land. Because India is quite a big kind of a girl, it takes a lot to get around her curves. In fact, most of my days are spent preoccupied with securing transport (and food and bathrooms, but those are other posts). I have been on so many different types of transport that I thought it fitting to hold kind of an Academy Awards of Indian Transportation here. So, after 3000kms and another 3000 to go, here are some of tonight’s big winners. In the category of Most Terrifying Ride, the winner is: Madikeri to Coorg in the middle of the night during sectarian Hindu-Muslim violence. Cody & I arrived in Madikeri for a few days of hanging out at an organic forest coffee farm in the beautiful green area of Coorg, which is due west of Mysore and Bangalore. It’s a wooded, farming area and as our bus got closer and closer and took us further up the hill, the roads deteriorated into that charming Indian potholed state that really gives truth to the expression “hold on to your tits”. We had called ahead for our autorickshaw driver, Charlie, to pick us up and take us to the farm. But we got in a bit later than we expected and the sun was setting. As we get off the bus Charlie runs up to us, tense and pinched. “I called you ten times” he says. We weren’t getting any reception, we say back. He hustles us brusquely into the ‘rick. As we settle our bums on the seat he peels out of the sleepy little town of Madikeri as if he is being chased. He is taking potholes hard and fast, swerving at the last possible second to avoid other cars, and generally driving like a maniac. And this guy was recommended to us by the inn as a great driver. When we get out of town it is no better. On what is little more than a dirt road Charlie is hauling ass. I hold on to the “oh shit” handle with both hands. My teeth are rattling and a few times I catch air as we sail over something that was hopefully already dead. Rick’s have no shocks and this road would have given a 4×4 a run for its money. At one point I seriously contemplate telling him I’m carrying a baby so he’ll slow this death cart down. Finally I decide to go with it, and stick my head out of the window to see some of the stars above hurtling past us. As we pull into the inn Charlie finally explains. There’s been some trouble in town. A Hindu politician came to the area and gave an inflammatory speech. That was two days ago. Since then there has been rock throwing, grandstanding and petty violence of the Hindu majority against the Muslims in town, who are not farmers and are mostly the shopkeepers. There’s a curfew, no more buses are running, and he had to get us out of town before dark. Furthermore, it’s not safe for him to drive back now so he has to stay the night with us! In the next few days we learn that this story is basically 90% true. There wasn’t exactly an official curfew, but there was cause to be alarmed if out after dark. I thought Charlie was risking our buts but he was actually saving them. So Charlie, this award is for you! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639491244-OOMLGL7T9G8430IKKSQJ/img_0791.jpg Travel Blog - Trains, Planes & Automobiles (plus Ricks, Boats, Propeller Planes & Scooters) – Getting Through India One Kilometer at A Time Musical Interlude: Wild Horses This team of wild horses was outside my hotel room one morning. I don’t know if it was transportation related or if they were just hanging out. Most Thrilling Way From Point A to Point B: Dead Weight on A Scooter On the way out to a cool national forest in Goa, I rode bitch on the back of my friend Pratap’s scooter. Contrary to popular belief, there is some skill involved in riding in this position. First of all, you have to master the art of not making any sudden moves. The driver is doing all the balancing, and if you throw your weight around like a sulky sack of potatoes you will both surely die. Second, you have to avoid creepy touching. There’s a place to put your hands and a place not to put your hands, if you want to keep friends and not get dumped off. No matter how scared you get. Lots of Indian men riding with other men seemed to be flouting these conventions, though. Third, it’s really fun. If you actually relax your death grip and turn your head, it is a great way to watch the world whiz by and feel like you are actually in it. And it’s the way real India gets around, as the vast majority do not have cars. After this experience I am now ready to go local style on a bike: loaded up with my grandmother, baby niece and two chickens in tow. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639486751-BBSV0HEL9QW7BMBU2JFP/img_0661.jpg Travel Blog - Trains, Planes & Automobiles (plus Ricks, Boats, Propeller Planes & Scooters) – Getting Through India One Kilometer at A Time In the category of Shiniest New Ride – puddle jumper prop plane from Hyderabad to Mysore India is growing faster than it can keep up with, don’t you know? I had the best proof of this when I booked a flight on Cleartrip from Hyderabad to Mysore for $40. Hyderabad is a fairly big and growing medium sized city with a pimp little airport. Mysore is a sleeply little town of 800,000 (that’s nothing in Indian terms). So my hosts in Hyderabad were confused when I said I was flying there. “Is there even an airport there?” my friend’s dad asked. I shrugged. Smart money was on the Cleartrip booking being a bait and switch – I would arrive in Bangalore and my connecting “flight” to Mysore would be a tidy little deluxe AC bus. I was shocked when I got to Bangalore and indeed was ushered on to a plane to Mysore. I was even more shocked by the size of the plane. It was a cute little 18 seater that you didn’t even have to go up steps to get on. I don’t like my planes cute so I was prepared to be terrified. And it was a terrifying ride, although it lasted all of 25 minutes. The stewardesses tried valiantly to push a beverage cart down the narrow aisle, but their faces betrayed the ridiculousness of that particular effort on a plane this size. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639488752-M0CA6SOWA4UMJH691R39/img_0720.jpg Travel Blog - Trains, Planes & Automobiles (plus Ricks, Boats, Propeller Planes & Scooters) – Getting Through India One Kilometer at A Time We arrived at Mysore airport. It was the mouse that roared. Airport is perhaps even a strong word for it. It was a one terminal hall in the middle of absolutely nowhere. A woman was outside of it weeding the lawn by hand. There was one airline flying there – Kingfisher – from one place – Bangalore. There was one baggage carousel and one security line. The ladies bathroom was spotless in a way that was suspicious in India. I don’t think it had ever been used before. But Mysore airport was filled with what I’m starting to get to know as Indian ambition. It may not be much now, but the way Bangalore is growing and sending off offshoots, Mysore could be the size of San Francisco in a year. From an airport that even native Indians who have been to Mysore several times don’t realize was there to a major regional transportation hub, this is not outside of what I can imagine given the pace of growth here. When that happens, let’s hope they get some planes going that are big enough to fit a standard sized beverage service cart. Musical Interlude: Bullock Carts My friend’s dad was fond of teasing us about how bullock carts were the mode of transportation in his village growing up. But those days aren’t gone – my ‘rick got raced by one in Mysore. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639490953-E899ZTTE7OGVS7RX497K/img_0754.jpg Travel Blog - Trains, Planes & Automobiles (plus Ricks, Boats, Propeller Planes & Scooters) – Getting Through India One Kilometer at A Time Musical Interlude: Never Thought I’d Be On A Boat On Palolem beach we took a boat not too far out into the water to spy on some dolphins. We also re-enacted “I’m the king of the world” Titanic poses on the “bow” of our “ship”. A few days later, we partied with the middle aged and repressed teen boys alike on the disco sunset cruise out of Panjim’s harbor. Most Humbling Moment: Train Ride From Goa to Hampi Did I mention that India was huge? It’s actually a long way from Goa to Hampi, even though it looked pretty close on the map. Cody & I decided to do trains for our next destinations. Third class sleeper was the only thing available even though we booked about a week in advance. I set out to do this one on my own while Cody embarked on his own 16 hour overland train odyssey to Kerala, also in third class. This second train ride gave me an up close personal look at what India for working class people can be like. The boarding platform was outrageous. As soon as the train pulled in, pleasantly on time, a horde of very skinny and desperate looking men in dark polyester slacks and light short sleeved cotton shirts began crowding onto the compartment before the train even stopped. It looked like a scene out of the front lines of a Tahrir Square anti-police riot. I couldn’t do anything but stare and laugh, but it wasn’t funny. I hopped in a 1st class car further down the line and hoped for the best. Trains don’t come in either announced or labeled, so I was hoping I was heading in the right basic direction. On my earlier shorter train ride to Goa from Mangalore, no one had botthered to even check our tickets so I figured I was safe here. I pulled the curtains closed and enjoyed my AC view. But about an hour into it, a conductor came by. My heart sank. He brusquely explained that I would have to move down to sleeper car s4. There was no way to do this inside the train as there was no way from first class to the other classes. Oh really, India? I would have to disembark and run 8 cars down to my class at the next station. Hurry to shuffle back into your place. This train ticket guy had the stern mustachioed countenance of the middle aged Indian career bureaucrat that I was getting familiar with, so there would be no sweet talking my way out of this one. I steeled myself and made the run for it. This was the most desperate run of my trip, because if I missed this train, it was a day wait to get back to anywhere. That desperation was met by a tired disinterest when I huffed and puffed into my car. Riding in third class was like stepping aboard a ship doing the Middle Passage: hot, rank, cramped, interminable, fraut – except with biryani hawkers instead of overseers. People were flopped out on the steel and vynl bench seats in various states of casaul disarray, like walking into someone’s living room. Agricultural products travelled with people. 90% of the faces were male, gaunt looking and staring at me blanky. The car smelled of feces and body odor. And not a seat was available. A lady told me I had to go to another car “no seats here”. I couldnt’ find any seat or berth numbers anywhere so I just walked until I found a nice looking kid who had his feet up. He let me sit and I stayed planted there unmoving for the next seven and a half hours. He was a good kid but he had a lot of questions. He asked me if I knew what year India obtained independence, where I worked and lived, if I liked Obama (and then gave me his opinion) my name, age, marital status and number of kids; the capital of the United States (which he knew, it was a quiz for me), what I did for fun. In turn I asked him if he played video games (yes, Call of Duty!), did he use Facebook (yes, of course), what he was studying to be (an Engineer), how old he was (15). He asked me all sorts of questions, staccato curious and a bit exhausting. But I was starting to suspect he had an angle. He let it drop that he collected foreign currencies, and had coins and bills from all over the world. I had heard that one before, from a mom on my last train ride, and had parted with some Thai Baht as a result. Lots of avid currency collectors in this nation? I wasn’t parting with cash this time. But he was so fresh faced and earnest and young, I was sure he would become the engineer he was dreaming of being. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639491045-7OE367R15KYRG8P5F2EM/img_0783.jpg Travel Blog - Trains, Planes & Automobiles (plus Ricks, Boats, Propeller Planes & Scooters) – Getting Through India One Kilometer at A Time Outro Act: Fireworks & the Bus Ride Out of Goa Every night in Goa on the beach we were treated to fireworks. No doubt this is horrible for the local environment and dangerous to boot, but still they were quite beautiful and gave our beach trip the air of a proper holiday. After an hour long hot as hell line up for our bus tickets out of Panjim back down to Margao and its train station, we we treated to some awesome fireworks and they lit up our retreat. The fiery plumes and star shapes receding behind us over Goa’s coastline were a fitting punctuation to what had been roughly 3000 kilometers of travel over India’s skies, beaches, forests, cities, waterways, towns, rivers and roads so far. India is huge and it’s always going somewhere; and it’s frequently doing so with a bang. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639487249-2SQ8KPC6F9278FXTR81E/img_0687-copy.jpg Travel Blog - Trains, Planes & Automobiles (plus Ricks, Boats, Propeller Planes & Scooters) – Getting Through India One Kilometer at A Time Best Performance In A Driver : Our 2nd to Last Leg Driver Going from Belur to Mangalore Over the Western Ghats We made our way slowly from Coorg to Mangalore, changing buses two or three times to see some of the sights along the way. The 2nd to last leg of our ride took us over the Western Ghats, a beautiful mountain range into green valleys that separates the India central plains from the coast. This was also where we encountered our best driving performance of the trip. At first we went up and up, and then we broke through a very healthy forest and we were on the side of a huge hill looking down into a gorgeous valley. This happened maybe seven or eight more times in windy switchback succession as we made our way across the mountain range. It was beautiful valley to spend time in. Unfortunately, we spent that time on a narrow, steeply descending, winding road that had trafffic going two ways on it and pilgrims in orange sarongs walking on either side. Every few meters we would see another group of twenty or so pilgrims – there must have been hundreds strewn along the road from Madikeri to the pilgrimage town of Dharmasthala. The bus driver would beep to alert them or just to say a friendly hi because they wouldn’t move anyway, and we would pass them either perilously for them on the road side or perilously for us on the straight drop cliff side. Occasionally a deluxe AC tour bus or a trucker would play chicken with us on what I swore was a one way road, coming at us fast in the other direction. One party would sometimes stop and let the other through, or sometimes we would just take our chances and head toward each other for the pass. At one point the driver stopped the bus and got blessed at a roadside temple of sorts before a particularly tricky decent. Now if you aren’t a believer, that sort of thing does the opposite of inspiring confidence. The road was bumpy; every now and again during the above dramatics we would also catch air and sail about two feet up out of our seats. It was fun, like a free rollercoaster ride. When we finally made it to Mangalore, we thanked the bus driver. What was terrrifying/thrilling for me was probably something he did two or three times a day. It had been a great ride, and he was clearly a master of his craft. https://www.free-state-kansas.com/travelblog/2011/02/25/bali-–-lost-island-of-black-people monthly 0.5 2024-10-28 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639475951-A9DH0X2ECZ9N9IJ5YYYW/img_0119.jpg Travel Blog - Bali – Lost Island of Black People? So, I’m sure you’ll agree that aside from that water sports anomaly, Bali is clearly a split off island from Africa that happened to float all the way over to Asia Pacific. I’m not sure what other surprises await me out here. Are there secret pockets of black people all over the world? Black Irish? Black Russians? Negra Modelas? And how come nobody told me about this? I’m off to search for the others. In the meantime though, I will enjoy my rediscovered love of pork and Usher and try to stay afloat in sea water. Thanks Bali Babi! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639484650-LYRID6Z36GQ4ARG1IPL9/img_0615.jpg Travel Blog - Bali – Lost Island of Black People? From the moment I got into the airport I sensed that these Balinese people were a different breed. The first person I talked to in Bali was a customs officer. I asked him how his day was and he said quite honestly “I really don’t want to be at work right now”. Then we both had a laugh. Then he asked me for a bribe. What kind of strange land was this? When I got into the cab, I knew I was not in Thailand anymore because the cab driver was friendly and interested in the details of my life, asked me if I liked music, and then proceeded to put Usher on the radio. He was just a teen and he put on classic Usher so I was impressed. I looked out into the streets from the rainy cab window. Everyone was darker, taller, bigger than they were in Thailand. Disgruntled, nosey, into R&B . . . was I even still in Asia? Or could I have accidentally landed off the coast of Africa? Where the Balinese a long lost tribe from the Motherland? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639485151-VOW9WNUP2W3HVIKA4Q6F/img_0634.jpg Travel Blog - Bali – Lost Island of Black People? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639475657-DEV2F4OCLLW479RZC97H/039.jpg Travel Blog - Bali – Lost Island of Black People? Third and perhaps most important, the Balinese people loved music and were excellent musicians. There was great music everywhere I went. The cover band in the whore pick-up bar playing Oasis. The Reggae band with the lead singer with dreads that would make a Jamaican proud. The straight ahead Jazz band in Ubud. The Latin Jazz band fronted by a beautiful Balinese piano playing and singing woman who mixed in classical melodies with precision and danced so well I thought she was a Brazilian. The classical dance performance with lots of head isolation that would make any 12 year old black girl in a schoolyard envious. The bass was pumping through the speakers everwhere on this island. I tried to get into the scene by taking a couple of Gamelan lessons. The Gamelan is a big percussion orchestra made of gongs and xylophones and hand drums that is the national orchestral classical music of much of Indonesia. The Gamelan here is different from what I remember in college. They play the brass Javanese one, but they also play their own Balinese one which is softer, prettier, made of bamboo. I took two lessons in Ubud on the Rindink, kind of a low-lech vibraphone made of bamboo reeds and low to the ground. Separation of left hand and right hand. Notes goes in a circular pattern. Never ending patterns. When you want to stop playing you just signal the other band members and play a little flourish. Meditative and confusing and awesome. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639486248-0Z2ND24PRHSQ4SIGZHSN/img_0647.jpg Travel Blog - Bali – Lost Island of Black People? One thing that was decidedly not black about the Balinese, though, was that they seem to be able to swim and many of them could actually surf. Seeing brown people on the water went to my head a little bit and I also attempted a surf lesson. The vibe at the school was very cool and relaxing, in perfect contrast to the sheer terror of my first surf experience. I got tumbled like a large load of laundry, and am still picking the sand out of various places. But it was still inspiring to know there was no actual genetic limitation on anyone brown when it comes to water sports. If my Balinese brothers could do it, eventually I will as well! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639486650-W81SGSO8HM9UFW27T37E/img_0650-copy.jpg Travel Blog - Bali – Lost Island of Black People? Many more things lead me to suspect that the Bali people were actually a long lost tribe of black people. First of all, the island was uber religious. It was impossible to tell the temples from the hotels from the houses. That traditional split tower entrance seemed to be in front of it all. And every place had an alter of some sort. In fact once we wandered into a temple while on the hunt for a library and this pugnacious little boy with perfect English stopped us with a snotty “What are you doing?” As if we were crazy. This is a temple, he said. But I swear it looked just like bungalows for rent. In fact, we had a structure like that outside of our hotel room down the block, Ganesha and all. Multi-colored offerings to the gods were scattered on the street everywhere, and 1 out of 2 people had rice on their foreheads from a recent blessing. We even got a spontaneous roadside blessing from some concerned citizens at the juncture of a particularly twisty piece of road we were about to drive past. A “Praise Jesus” would not have be out of order here. The Balinese folk were believers. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639475350-C3II0108TNABXSWNJBZR/024.jpg Travel Blog - Bali – Lost Island of Black People? Second, these people loved food, and especially pork. Babi is the name for pig products here and Babi and I quickly became close friends. Babi Bakso, Babi Goreng and my personal favorite, Babi Guleng – a slow roasted suckling pig that is cooked seven hours and then you literally get to eat every part of it – skin, ribs, butt cheek, thigh, you name it, they served it. Food was a celebration here, and much of the food had rhythmic, fun to say names: Nasi Goreng, Bakso Ayam, Raw Cacao, Bali Coffee, Gado Gado, Coca Cola, emphasis always on the last syllable of the word and said in a high rising tone, thank you very much. Names of foods tripped off the tongue here like joyous battle cries, that’s how profound the love of food was. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639475454-7VPRSN8J4K26BFTHYQZY/036.jpg Travel Blog - Bali – Lost Island of Black People? But the final thing that convinced me that the Balinese were actually black was that they were wildly imitated and be-deviled everywhere with white people trying to copy their style, hang out at their beaches, eat their food and hit on their women. Nowhere was this more evident than in Ubud where the people wore Batik inspired local fashions and sipped coconut water in their organic cafes, dripping with local artisan silverwork jewelry. These people seemed to love Balinese life for sure. But if they woke up one day and had to really live it toiling in some hot ass rice paddy, I’m not so sure they would love it. So screw you, Julia Roberts & Elizabeth Gilbert. https://www.free-state-kansas.com/travelblog/2011/02/03/15-days-8-rules-0-dinners-meditation-retreat-at-wat-doi-suthep monthly 0.5 2024-10-28 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639480750-JIMAN9SNIO3GEMB579U2/img_0575.jpg Travel Blog - 15 Days, 8 Rules, 0 Dinners - Meditation Retreat at Wat Doi Suthep #3 – No Mouthing Off We had to refrain from wrongful speech and keep silent. Phra Buddasak’s told us that his advice to many of the lay people who came to see him with problems, especially wives, was “don’t talk alot”. This one wasn’t hard for me since I have been traveling solo for a few months and not talking to anyone anyway. But right after the course I talked a lot and I then understood why we were silent during it. When most of us talk, most of the time we are really just having this conversation with ourselves that goes something like this “me, me, me, this is what I have, this is what I know, this is my precious opinion, I’m not afraid, not at all, not at all, I feel great plus I’m better than you”. Don’t take my word for it, check that out for yourself. This talking we do is mostly idle and leaks energy like a car tire with a nail in it leaks air. So the monks had us keep silent to conserve our energy, for the strenuous task of sitting still all day. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639480249-VM2WTDT3Z78ZGE6DZS7W/img_0566.jpg Travel Blog - 15 Days, 8 Rules, 0 Dinners - Meditation Retreat at Wat Doi Suthep #7 – No Nap Time We had to refrain from oversleeping. Which meant no laying down during the day and no going to bed before 9:30PM. A kind of reverse curfew. We woke up at 5AM sharp for Dhamma talk at 5:30AM with Phra Buddasak. I cheated on this one every day and was in bed by 8PM. I was lying down to do my laying meditation, I told myself. More like lie-ing meditation. Even though I didn’t get this one emotionally like I ended up understanding some of the other rules, I saw the logic intellectually. Meditation made me sleepy and the temptation to take a nap instead of meditating was always strong. I do wish I had meditated more at night, I would have got more out of the program for sure. Or at least had fewer strange dreams. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639481953-XA4Q77I4PG2WZ974J5WC/img_0581.jpg Travel Blog - 15 Days, 8 Rules, 0 Dinners - Meditation Retreat at Wat Doi Suthep #2 – No Thieving We had to refrain from stealing. Those 30 meter high Buddha statues looked pretty heavy, so I didn’t think this one would be a problem. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639483053-S5DJ398NDB3HTBWNBNXN/img_0597.jpg Travel Blog - 15 Days, 8 Rules, 0 Dinners - Meditation Retreat at Wat Doi Suthep Rules is rules, and big meals are totally “an obstacle to the practice”. Grudgingly, I began to observe this directly. For the first few days I overate lunch desperately, and meditating after lunch was a nightmare of sleepiness and hostile free floating anxious day-mares. But one day I had tried just eating a regular sized lunch and meditation after lunch went much better. The monks explained to us that we were all lucky to get two meals a day; when the Buddha experienced enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree after giving up his starvation routine, he decided to be moderate and allowed himself one meal a day. And we were getting two so in other words, quit your bitching. I was starting to understand why you don’t see many fat people in Thailand. Buddhism is secretly a weight control program. But I am not Thai, I am African American and I was hungry. Every day I stared at my plate of lunch forlornly, knowing this would be my last meal for 17 hours. Every day I also went up to the gift shop by the main temple to stare down a Snickers bar. On the 11th day I broke and bought and ate one (although it was still before noon, so I thought I was beating the rules on a technicality). It made me sick. Snickers had always satisfied me before. WTF? Again, when I was released from the program immediately I went and satisfied another craving, this time fried spring rolls. They made me sick too! I could feel them in my mouth and the oil felt rancid, and I could feel them hit my stomach like a brick. I thought I liked spring rolls. I guess my body and mind had agreed to disagree on that point and I had never noticed. But now eating mindfully I was noticing. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639483851-2LOO50B31DCGFFJ7E2TT/img_0607.jpg Travel Blog - 15 Days, 8 Rules, 0 Dinners - Meditation Retreat at Wat Doi Suthep #5 – No Looking Grown & Sexy We had to wear white clothes only and no make up. This was about giving up beautification. This was hard for me. I cheated. I still put on my Retin A cream every night. It was a tough task with no mirrors and in a cold, dark room but I persevered. I though – “Screw you, monk, you don’t have to live in the real world where women are judged and rewarded primarily on looks. Now pass me that eye cream.” But as I stood there shivering every night in the dark applying various different lotions, I did start to feel a little silly. Was I putting the foot cream mistakenly on my eyelids, and what effect would that have? Did it take me this long every night? Didn’t I know I was going to get old and wrinkled no matter what I did? Was I, the one who dresses primarily in unisex Polo shirts and who never wears makeup, in fact Super Vain? Phra Buddasak in one of his Dhamma talks declared with a straight face that Buddhism was good for your skin. You would not need wrinkle cream because meditation was cream for your mind. You can therefore drop the creams and just meditate instead. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll go down to just two. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639484351-JVWHHYDQJC49S5KGK24W/img_0613.jpg Travel Blog - 15 Days, 8 Rules, 0 Dinners - Meditation Retreat at Wat Doi Suthep According to Mahasi Sayadaw, the purpose of just sitting with this crap is not to eliminate it, but to realize that you are not in control of your body or your mind. They have urges you can’t do much about and it causes suffering you can’t control. So if you can’t control them, then “you” are not your body or your mind, or any of the other aggregates of existence like consciousness, will, thoughts, sensation. You can’t control any of these things perfectly, so logically “you” are none of them. Which means “you”, the unmoving mover, don’t really exist as such. As Gertrude Stein said (unfairly) about Oakland, CA – “there is no there, there.” Sounds scary, but this is actually the good news. It means “you” don’t have to be so selfish and fearful anymore, trying to prop “yourself ” up. “You” can let go. And that’s the whole point of vipassana meditation. I thought it was about reducing my anxiety on flights with deep breathing exercises. Oh well. Parole. Despite all the rules, a feeling of satisfaction set in for me at Doi Suthep. And getting out was like getting out of prison. I felt great feelings of recidivism coming on, and a friend I made there (silently) who I hung out with afterward shared that she felt the same (that friend has since gone in for another 3 days at a different monastery up north). The outside world had too much shit going on in it, meaningless shit. Going to the market to pick out stuff to send home to friends – too many choices. Who needed all this junk? Chiang Mai tee-shirts? Hill tribe knicknacks? Going to a restaurant to eat: why is this menu so long? I just want rice and vegetables. Checking into the internet to let everyone know about how cool I am and how awesome my trip was? Equally boring. Who cares what I think of myself? I don’t even care much. And why did I have so many things to do on me? Books, music, iPhone games, TV episodes. At Doi Suthep I was satisfied wearing the same thing every day, eating the same thing every day, and doing nothing but focusing on learning how to better walk across the floor at the speed of one eigth mile per hour. The outside world was too much. I wanted to commit a crime so I could be sent back to my little one room cell. How could I get back? I could ordain as a nun . . . But then I remembered I would have to shave my head to ordain and I got to thinking of alternatives. After all, Buddhism is not supposed to be just for the monks. Its supposed to be for lay people, too. You are actually supposed to go out into the world and deal with reality (monks too, because they are supposed to be kind of like welfare/social services for lay people). Another of our rules was that we were supposed to keep mindfulness in the minor postures. So the major postures were the four meditations. But the minor postures were everything else you did all day long. That way, you could train your mind all the time and prevent foul states of mind from influencing you to do bad things. You didn’t have to be at a monastery to do that. So, no going back to the monastery for me, at least not just yet. I will attempt instead to practice on my own, and practice mindfulness in the minor postures as well. I will attempt to not hog the airplane armrests so that I can spread loving kindness and be less of a grumpy curmudgeon. I do this not for the world, but for my own liberation which apparently nobody is going to help me with and which is not available on order from Amazon.com. I won’t have the beautiful temple or forest or icy cold showers to help me get back into the mood. But I still have my feet, and I still have my aching crossed legs. And I can always skip dinner. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639479850-5BAC3UH3C51BT1WPKJ1D/img_0555.jpg Travel Blog - 15 Days, 8 Rules, 0 Dinners - Meditation Retreat at Wat Doi Suthep #4 – No Sexting We had to refrain from sexual activity, even flirting (written up in our manual as “no flirting with the opposite sex”, which makes me wonder about the social life at these boys-only monasteries). This was a pain because there were at least two cute guys there. And furthermore, what better place to meet a great boyfriend than a meditation retreat? But again I could see the logic in this. That particular dance would have totally occupied my mind. I would have been posing while meditating, wondering if the white orderly uniform I sported showed off my butt well enough to attract the attention of that pleasantly serious looking chap on the meditation cushion two feet behind me. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639477763-PGDUTYY3XK25UPCL2887/img_0544.jpg Travel Blog - 15 Days, 8 Rules, 0 Dinners - Meditation Retreat at Wat Doi Suthep Here are the rules we had to follow: #1 – No Murder We had to refrain from killing, even bugs. This was hard as we were in a forest in a tropical country so there were a fair number of creepy crawlies. The head monk, Phra Buddasak, was quite clear that if you kill a mosquito by accident while sweeping the floor, that’s okay; but if you kill a mosquito that is stinging you with the though in your head “You Die!!”, then that is definitely bad karma. So I grew careful of bugs. Pra Buddasak said that when you have to think about it before you kill something, you examine closely the energy of killing and the energy of anger and how much of it you have in you. Instead of killing the mosquito that is bedeviling you, you should thank it for giving you the opportunity to observe your own violent nature with detachment. So thank you, mosquito, for turning my legs into a five star restaurant. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639479754-41Z2TI70S3BTRWPS5YOH/img_0554.jpg Travel Blog - 15 Days, 8 Rules, 0 Dinners - Meditation Retreat at Wat Doi Suthep I think they broke me. You know what I can eat now that doesn’t make me sick? The same thing we ate every day at Doi Suthep. Rice and vegetables. I am going to fight this one though and I intend to have roast pork in Bali, even if it’s just one mindful bite. WTF was allowed? So in short there was a lot of stuff we couldn’t do, some I understood and some I struggled with. But what could we do all day with all that newly liberated free time not spent sleepy, preening, gossiping or in a food coma? Meditate, meditate and meditate some more. Meditate in the practice room. Meditate outside in the woods. Meditate in the chanting chapel, up at the main temple, in our rooms. On the terrace, during lectures in languages you didn’t understand, while waiting for your check in with the teacher. Meditate in the four major postures: walking, standing, sitting and laying. Boring, boring and more boring. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639483745-VOV9GVB2K6NBCV6VS8IY/img_0598.jpg Travel Blog - 15 Days, 8 Rules, 0 Dinners - Meditation Retreat at Wat Doi Suthep These monks are pretty clever. Turns out being bored is difficult. Just simple walking, sitting, laying down and standing are extraordinarily difficult, when you can’t let your mind wander off. I could barely do it. At times I wanted to gnaw my own leg off, or run screaming out of the temple. Once I did do that, actually (it was a silent scream, like that famous painting). When you have to just concentrate on a mundane task and you aren’t allowed to let your mind wander around like a crazed dog off the leash, you realize that in fact your mind is a crazed dog off the leash and you are not in control much of the time in real life. You are just going in circles in your head. The plane is circling the runway in a holding pattern, waiting for clearance to land. Pairing down your activities to the bare essentials illustrates this powerfully. Smart monks. I think everyone discovered some individual personal demon running around unattended in their head. I personally was plagued by paranoid thoughts that people were plotting against me. I made up dramas and resentments about people I wasn’t even allowed to talk to! She took the pineapple slice I was looking at. He sat in the seat I usually sit in, on purpose. She’s hogging all the good meditation cushions. He used the last of the hot tea water just when he saw me coming. Jesus. I did realize sadly that I bring this energy to situations, it’s inside me and not out there coming from unfair bosses and bad boyfriends. Great. Just Great. I can quit those other things but I can’t quit myself. Nikki, I wish I knew how to quit you (Brokeback reference!). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639478350-LFJS8YXP9FMX9LX2LJOE/img_0550.jpg Travel Blog - 15 Days, 8 Rules, 0 Dinners - Meditation Retreat at Wat Doi Suthep I recently did some hard time at a Buddhist monastery – Wat Prathat Doi Suthep on the mountain outside of Chiang Mai, Thailand – in a meditation course for foreigners. It lasted fifteen days, there were a lot of rules and there was no dinner. While there I learned some tricky things about Buddhism and some tricky things about myself. The Buddhist religion is serious business in Thailand. People are quite devout and respect the monks. When you enter a temple, you prostrate 3 times to the Buddha image and the monks. The monks humbly let us know that it’s not them personally the people are honoring when they bow; the people are showing respect for all the rules that the monks keep. We meditators had to keep about eight rules. Lay people keep five. Novice monks keep ten. But full grown monks, they have to keep two hundred and twenty seven rules. So quit your bitching, in other words, was their message to us. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639482347-M48QQI53FNN43JUZO07S/img_0582.jpg Travel Blog - 15 Days, 8 Rules, 0 Dinners - Meditation Retreat at Wat Doi Suthep #6 – No Foursquare Checkins We couldn’t use the internet, listen to music, read books, make calls or write. This was to avoid diversion, and this was the one I originally feared the most. It turned out easier that I thought it would be. First of all, this rule ensured that you practiced plenty of meditation as there was nothing else to do. Second, with no more outside thoughts going into my mind, I did eventually feel like I could hear myself better on the inside. Too bad my inner monologue turned out to be as whiny and convoluted as KPRW Los Angeles public radio. Still, it was starting to quiet down on the inner talk radio airwaves in there by the end. When I got out I went online and after one hour I had to get off. It made my head hurt. Maybe it always did and I hadn’t noticed. the view over Chiang Mai at night from the temple, A.K.A. "television" https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639479064-CATW5Z24RG1XA9S4LAGV/img_0553.jpg Travel Blog - 15 Days, 8 Rules, 0 Dinners - Meditation Retreat at Wat Doi Suthep https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639484286-EI2KKB663T5TW1Q0HP1B/img_0608.jpg Travel Blog - 15 Days, 8 Rules, 0 Dinners - Meditation Retreat at Wat Doi Suthep But that’s okay. We learned that the purpose of meditation is not to eliminate these feelings (lucky it’s not, ’cause it don’t) or even to get calm. The purpose of meditation is kinda tricky, actually. On the last day of monk prison, after check out, I went to the english library in the meditation center and encountered a book on mediation by the monk who established the particular style of vipassana (insight) meditation that we practiced at Doi Suthep, the Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw. I found a passage where he was describing what it feels like when you try to sit for an hour. Basically he admits that it’s impossible to sit still for an hour! You are always moving and minutely squirming, adjusting. He instructs to bear it as much as you can, and when you can’t you’ll move. The same with thoughts, observe their coming and going, don’t try to stop them. Just sit there and suffer through it. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639480652-O57FFFFWWX0ZQZH3WG67/img_05741.jpg Travel Blog - 15 Days, 8 Rules, 0 Dinners - Meditation Retreat at Wat Doi Suthep sunrise light on the chanting temple doors #8 – No Dinner! But the toughest rule of all was that we were to refrain from overeating, and to support that we got two vegetarian meals a day, breakfast and lunch. No eating after noon. No dinner. I thought I would have this one in the bag easy as I had just come from off a four day fast. But this was super hard for me. I was hungry. Really, really hungry. We were supposed to eat mindfully with the purpose of sustaining the body and not for intoxication and entertainment. Notice every bite. Feel when it hits your stomach. Phra Buddasak even told us to chew 10 times, just like Mom used to say. Every day we read or chanted a verse in Pali reaffirming a wise reflection on food before we ate, that we should use food to only sustain the body and not for entertainment. Then when we ate to destroy hunger, we wouldn’t be creating a new undesirable feeling of overeating. Or as Biggie might say: more food, more problems. So instead of dinner, everyday at 6PM we chanted Dhamma verses together in the original Pali. I had no idea what we were saying, but it did take your mind momentarily off the dinner you weren’t having. https://www.free-state-kansas.com/travelblog/2011/01/14/sanctuary monthly 0.5 2024-10-28 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639474073-FXWTVE02G65PP46TSNFX/img_04941.jpg Travel Blog - Sanctuary! In my mind I’ve started to talk to myself in a British accent. This is particularly disturbing to me: it always sounds like a plantation owner who’s simultaneously beating me and condescending to me about football. But that’s not what I want to talk about today. I just spent 7 days fasting and eating raw at this place in Koh Phangan called The Sanctuary. I think I got a groove back I haven’t had since prowling the clothing-optional dorms of WestCo in ’93. I can no longer berate hippies because at The Sanctuary I became what I beheld. That crunchy beatnik I tried to kill off in the Web 1.0 era is alive & well, and functions best on a raw vegan diet! This is the turn of events that brought her back out to the surface: On the way from Krabi to The Sanctuary, I am filled with trepidation. Ever since growing out my shaved head and picking back up with meat eating, I’ve been distancing myself from hippies hard core. I’m sure I hate them in fact. Who could be that soft and naïve about the world? It’s also so easy to be righteous when you don’t have to earn a living. Hippies for me were like hick relatives I had outgrown in my move to the Big City. Now, embarrassed by their Patchouli-loving ways, I was being forced to go back home and check on the family farm. So here I am on the way to Koh Phangan, going to check up on some long lost relations. The path to all these beautiful beaches go through garbage strewn towns and filthy ports. On the bus ride to the ferry you pass monocrop palm tree platations. I wonder what the original forest looked like. The whole thing to me feels like prostitution of young girls – not much different – trotting out your natural beauty and letting foreigners pay to soil it. Westerners ruin everything. If everyone here is so groovy-hippie, why don’t we all stay home and save the Earth instead? The trip from Surat Thani to Koh Phangan is like central casting for teenaged backpackers down and out on their Round The World trips. I feel old and smug about it. Row after row of backpacks are stacked together on the ferry. The ticket takers are jaded as hell and when I say hello in Thai they look at me like I’m crazy, and speak perfect English back. So much for the Land of Smiles. We are hustled from ferry to bus to train to bus like high class colonialist cattle. Everyone here is Western White – I have to wonder do Thais go to their own beaches? Suddenly I feel less bad about having to pay extra Farang prices at the major attractions. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639474855-82ZAR0G5YAJWCSJULZPB/img_0522.jpg Travel Blog - Sanctuary! A lifetime of shit happens to me there: abdominal massage with a woman named Miranda who has the most unnerving, lovely, long-ass eye contact I have ever experienced; tantric meditation class where everyone huffs and puffs like a bad porno movie; being eaten alive by mosquito to the point that my arm is a mysterious, mangled new shape; gorgeous beach sunrises in the rain; open mike night where a guy from Sweden plays an eight-sided personal-sized steel drum called the Hung, and two straight guys sing a hilarious yet sincere duet of Endless Love to each other; and lots of really good yoga. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639475249-S2B0DNCE6QJ28A4MCAPX/img_0524.jpg Travel Blog - Sanctuary! But it is the best fruit I have ever had in my life! It tastes so damn good. Later that night under a situation of unbearable temptation I also have chocolate ice cream. So much for my beneficial bacterial balance. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639470750-ZQF286BMFX66DUULQYFU/264.jpg Travel Blog - Sanctuary! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639474450-VHUV38Z3NE19O29Z7R3Y/img_0500.jpg Travel Blog - Sanctuary! By the end I’m super sad to leave. I’m getting hugs from people that feel like old friends although I just met them a few days ago. The vibe is good, and I definitely feel in touch with my positive energy. My chakras are aligned. I’ve had so much massage and yoga that I never want to be touched like that or bend in those shapes again. I’m thinking about going vegetarian permanently, or at least picking up some of that psyllium husk stuff. Total conversion achieved! I love hippies again! The early 90s live on! I’ll definitely be back to The Sanctuary. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639470452-O7U706CP9QRHY24HB4TM/256.jpg Travel Blog - Sanctuary! Out on the open sea my mood starts to pick up. The ferry ride itself is terrifying but not entirely in a bad way. I sit out with the youths on the forward bow of the ship, which has the narrowest of steel railings protecting us from a plunge into the deep green sea. The ticket takers say nothing as we all take makeshift seats on the open deck. Then the ride starts and the wind and rain threaten to rip people off the boat. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639470658-8SL67NF8ZX5LKM0CR3OD/257.jpg Travel Blog - Sanctuary! But I have a blast on it. Did something happen to me on the first ferry? Did I grow a set? Enter The Sanctuary. It’s little rocky beach approaches. I feel myself intrigued and I am beginning to be seduced already. The place is a mix of gorgeous and garbage strewn, as are the people. I’ve never seen so many badly/barely/bodaciously dressed gorgeous people in my life. Yoga arms and yoga abs are everywhere. Everyone’s got that healthy Hi-Pro glow. Pasty white people are outlawed – everyone’s got a healthy tan. Messy beach hair is so perfectly unkempt and highlit that you might have paid a stylist for it. I can’t stop looking around. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639471056-EPK8HI2IOATGHTT4OAOL/img_0491.jpg Travel Blog - Sanctuary! Us Fasters are on a strict schedule that leaves us all carrying around our little paper schedules and rushing to squeeze things in and tick things off. Herbs at 10:30. Shake at 12. Do I have time to get a massage or an energy healing session in before my colonic at 4PM? Might have to skip that walk to the other beach with you. Should I skip meditation tonight in favor of the herbal steam room? Decisions, decisions. It’s all very stressful. I spend a lot of time decompressing from it in my hammock. We sit around chatting and bonding over the psyllium shakes we have four times a day as if it we were at a regular bar throwing back rounds of pints. Every night we eat “dinner” together (a hot vegetable broth with nothing chewable in it) and discuss the contents of our poo. We are all from various English speaking parts of the world (London, Ireland, New Zealand, The States, Canada, Australia) and for the first time in my life I can hear my own accent and how nasal it is. It’s hilarious. This is the most fun I’ve had in so long. Colonics are an eye opening experience. Enough said there. The highlight of the fasting is the Saturday morning rave. Right behind our resort is a dance floor in the jungle and people are drugged out of their minds partying from Friday night until well past the break of dawn. Apparently they didn’t get the memo that MDMA went out in the late 90s. They party all night and we try to sleep through it. But if you can’t beat them, you join them. So me and my fasting buddies arrive at 7AM in the morning and party too until 10AM or so. There are a lot of animal prints, feathers, beads, crocheted tops, sequins and bare chests. I sort of love it. Okay, I really love it. Me and the Fasters are all several days into not eating and stone cold sober, yet funnily we are not that different in outlook, spaciness and grooviness than any of the others. The party proves conclusively to me that you do not need mind altering substances to have a good time. But you may need food and sleep deprivation. Finally time to break the fast. I am thinking we all might be a little eating-disorderly at this point. The feast to break the fast is – wait for it! – a plate of fruit. One single fruit because it’s important not to mix. And the next day you get to add steamed vegetables. Yeah. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639470249-2SGCFMFVXREEPBIZMFSE/240.jpg Travel Blog - Sanctuary! So I get to Koh Phangan and I think the high seas adventures are over. Wrong. Next up: the Taxi Boat ride. These long tail boats are like overgrown canoes and you are right on the water. They look like the little boats Somali pirates ride up to tankers in. Ghetto ass boats. One guy, the “captain”, fights the waves with a rudder while you bob up and down. To help navigate the boat, in real time you are asked with hard shouts to move to one side of the boat or the other. “Left, Left, Left! Right, Right, Right!”. Jesus. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639470350-OGOFJYLQCUGJVPHX6232/243.jpg Travel Blog - Sanctuary! I cling to the railing t my right with legs, arms, feet and hands; and the teenage boys behind me with no shirts on slip around and laugh hysterically. Main difference between youth and middle age – I now believe I am going to die, so can’t enjoy moments like that as much. Still, when the waters calm down it is a beautiful vantage point. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639470152-QLSVERKKKGU4O3SBTUXI/014.jpg Travel Blog - Sanctuary! The place seems to be a peacefully coexisting mix of drugged out ravers and sensitive new age health freaks; often embodied by the same people. I get there and meet my new buddies – the fellow Fasters. We are all ages, shapes and sizes united in our quest to pay the most money we have ever paid in our lives to not get to eat anything for a week. We meet Moon, our spiritual guide and camp counselor. He does my PH test and tells me I need to eat raw for two days before I am ready to begin. I head to the restaurant to get some raw “spaghetti” that actually tastes fantastic. The conversion is staaaaaaarting. https://www.free-state-kansas.com/travelblog/2010/12/19/chiang-mai-is-for-lovers monthly 0.5 2024-10-19 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639466152-O09OOD4SOL27JX3IRTF3/hpim0406.jpg Travel Blog - Chiang Mai is For Lovers HPIM0406 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639465751-LQ4UN1GB8IGUOSTFUB2Z/hpim0398.jpg Travel Blog - Chiang Mai is For Lovers HPIM0398 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639465367-STS5XIW5MODDRWR5GP52/img_03351.jpg Travel Blog - Chiang Mai is For Lovers First of all, a few pictures in the body of this but mostly they will go up on my Flicker page when I score some good upload, in the next few days . . .So far Chiang Mai is a nice soft easing into this trip. Friends were right: it's an easy town to love. I can see why people come here and end up staying. My Saturday yoga teacher said he came to Chiang Mai for one week and now it's eight years later. I've been here 8 days with 7 days to go. Rest assured, nothing will keep me from getting back to Bangkok in time for the Tron premiere in this country (3D, Imax, couches and hot towels FTW!).The Chiang Mai populace is basically divided into 7 types of people: Thai Students Asian Tourists Western Tourists Backpackers Hospitality Industry Locals Regular Locals Expats https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639465852-PB6QPPYE1N71BEVEOUN5/hpim0378.jpg Travel Blog - Chiang Mai is For Lovers HPIM0378 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639465569-BPPWRLT8ENAF5R1IWQ91/hpim0442.jpg Travel Blog - Chiang Mai is For Lovers HPIM0442 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639465649-46LFUI4AQ97L75YAHAFM/hpim0431.jpg Travel Blog - Chiang Mai is For Lovers https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6568d8788421fc0da041baf3/1728639469551-WWKSC0ERTJ9VF9VSSNNU/img_0357.jpg Travel Blog - Chiang Mai is For Lovers IMG_0357 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