Chermeo World Tour

13 things learned in Cambodia

2010-10-30T03:29:00.000-07:00

1. Cambodian immigration officials do not like it when you show up at the border with a full passport.

2. They especially don't like it when you show up at the border with a full passport the second time.

3. Vegetable amok. Bomb.

4. The DPRK embassy is across the street from PwC's Phnom Penh office. Chew on that.

5. The Khmer like their naga.

6. Cambodian dancing is a whole different thing.

7. Lots of dolphins in the Mekong, but not as many as there should be. Another sad legacy of Pol Pot.

8. People can do terrible things to each other.

9. Private roads in Cambodia are built by the Chinese and Koreans. They are smooth, good, and expensive to travel.

10. A Korean private company manages Angkor Wat. So you pay a ton to get into Cambodia's national treasure, and only a tiny percentage goes to Cambodia.

11. The Khmer love their morning exercise.

12. Phnom Penh. A lovely city.

13. Severe bodyaches, headaches, boneaches, and fever might frighten you into leaving the country early in order to get to a Bangkok hospital. Said pains may disappear the minute you cross the border, but then invade your wife.

16 things learned in Laos

2010-10-30T03:20:00.000-07:00

1. Coconut shakes. Nuff said.

2. Sticky rice can be shaped into cubes, footballs, people, anything you like.

3. Clearly, temple builders had location, location, location in mind.

4. The art of relaxation is best perfected in Four Thousand Islands.

5. Amy can mend things, such as pajamas and buttons.

6. Gabe is a mean checkers player.

7. Riding bikes in the monsoon rain is actually pretty fun.

8. Water buffalo move faster than you think.

9. Mosquito nets are often repaired with Band-Aids.

10. You can spend half an hour waiting to see if a gecko will eat a beetle.

11. We thought being away from home for a year was extreme. It's not. We met a guy on his way home for his mom's 80th birthday. Last time he was home: her 70th.

12. Bus drivers like to stop for snacks. And smoke breaks. And pee breaks. And for no apparent reason whatsoever.

13. Beetles and crickets roasted on sticks are terrifying when waved inches from your face by a tiny Laotian woman.

14. You can buy bags of live bugs to go.

15. Lao funeral celebrations are pretty friendly. We recommend Day 3.

16. Throne toilets don't necessarily have to be flush toilets.

So Paul showed up

2010-10-30T02:56:00.000-07:00

Paul dropped into Saigon for some running around Vietnam and Cambodia while Choi was back in New York for Hwanger's wedding. It was kind of a brutal travel schedule. We fit in 2 days of templing at and around Angkor Wat, the S-21 prison and Killing Fields, a tour of the Mekong Delta, the Cao Dai's Holy See, the infamous Cu Chi tunnels and maybe the best ice cream creation known to man.

To begin, after traveling for something like 24hrs straight from St.Louis, I let him rest for 5hrs before taking a 12hr bus ride from Saigon (Vietnam) to Siem Reap (Cambodia). I was shocked Paul managed to form coherent responses to my rants about all the crazy shit that happened in India. After some solid Khmer curry we turned in because the next day would be a long one. Ha.

The temples of Angkor were indeed cool. The first day we explored the smaller temples. I have to say I preferred the smaller ones to the big mama Angkor Wat. The smaller ones were less crowded and seem to have more interesting architecture. Angkor Wat was huge and I particularly liked the depiction of the Ramayana, but all the cool stuff had been looted or was sitting in the National Museum in Phnom Penh. The second day we caught Angkor Wat with a lame sunrise and hordes of Asian tour buses. Paul had to wait a bit to get a clear shot of the famous faces of Bayon. One of them I conveniently jumped in front of just to see how much patience he had.

(Paul was not amused.)

After templing we jumped on a bus to Phnom Penh to visit the Killing Fields and the prison where “subverts” were interrogated and tortured during Pol Pot's reign. Yay! Superfun and cheery!

After seeing some of the worst of humanity, we jetted back to Vietnam via boat. We ended up meeting a fun group of people on a soggy bus transfer back to Saigon. Not wanting to deal with monsoon rains and feeling a good vibe, Paul and I decided to crash for a night in the Mekong Delta. We ended up taking an all day boat tour wandering through the sleepy tributaries that during the Vietnam War were not so sleepy. I knew at that point I’d seen Platoon and Full Metal Jacket too many times, because it was pretty hard to relax at first. I kept imagining getting sniped from the heavy jungle foliage while the engine slowly puttered down the river way. Then I reassured myself that I’m an idiot and these people are way too busy rebuilding their country to pay attention to some farang floating by their front yard.

After a night, we return to Saigon only to get on an all day bus tour to the Cao Dai Holy See and Cu Chi Tunnels. The tunnels are a monument to Vietnamese resolve. You may have seen tunnels like these depicted in Vietnam-era movies. VC would take refuge in these things during the regular runs made by US Air Force bombers. They were incredibly small (I had trouble fitting my shoulders through the width of one) so as to minimize the shock caused by explosions. These aren’t the tunnels the VC lived in, those are up north toward the old DMZ. Apparently those tunnels were a bit bigger and something like 4 people were actually born underground.

Post-tunnels we stop by the Cao Dai Holy See. Why stop by and see these guys? Because they are colorful, open and among those they revere are Buddha, Jesus and Victor Hugo.

(Paul really liked Victor’s hat.)

I really like the Cao Dai because they embrace a lot of different teachings that really aren’t so different when you get the core of the matter. They basically believe that if you’re good in this life and follow some prescribed devotions, you can reach heaven without all the bothersome reincarnation. I wouldn’t mind skipping a thousand rebirths and go straight to the good stuff.

They also share my enthusiasm for dragon pillars. I feel a room could always use a few dragon pillars.

So that’s that. A whirlwind tour of some of the big stuff of Southeast Asia. Now Paul gets to go back to poopy diapers.

Need real pictures? Try Paul's flickr set.

My closing thoughts on India

2010-10-30T02:48:00.000-07:00

* Editor's note: Gabe wrote this in September.

So it’s been a little over a month since we left Delhi. I’ve been trying to make sense to myself what those two months in India meant and I think I’m now more confused than ever. I think India has given me a renewed appreciation for the celebration of divinity in all things. Twelve years of Catholic school installed a gag reflex at the slightest whiff of organized religion, but seeing how it works in India has changed that. There are literally a million ways to God. God is love, life is everything and love is life. It’s beautiful even amid the filth that pervades everything. This is a tremendous gift from Mother India because it’s something I’ve been struggling with for a long time. For this, I am thankful.

Now, in keeping with the essence of India here is the contradiction: the treatment of women.

Never having traveled extensively with a woman, I really didn’t know what to expect. Even traveling through Arab countries where the majority of the time there are no women are on the street, I never feared for Amy’s safety. (The one exception was that Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut, but that was more because we were Americans stupid enough to walk through a fucking Palestinian refugee camp.)

Getting to India and seeing how woman are maimed or killed because of dowry disagreements, how they face constant groping with the threat of rape if they dare to leave the house alone, how they are killed by their own family if they love someone of a lower caste, was too much. Passing groups of men on the street (because there are groups of men lounging EVERYWHERE) and seeing them leer at Amy was so disgusting. Seeing women beg on the street with half their face melted off, hearing countless stories from the women we talked to about being constantly molested on public transportation, finding out one of our roommates in Delhi almost got raped by a driver - these are real things. It seems to me the treatment of women is one of the main issues killing India. How can you so horribly oppress half of the population (although that number is shrinking due to the abortion of female fetuses) and expect to move forward? How can you ignore Gandhi, who stated that women are the future of India?

Again, this isn’t some article in the NYTimes. This is what we saw, felt and experienced. The one time I didn’t accompany Amy when we left our hostel, she was groped. I’ve never felt so much anger towards a people. Even before that happened to her, I was ready to stomp any man whose filthy little paw found its way into the wrong place. I’m not that big of a guy, but I’m definitely twice the size of almost everyone we saw on the street. This feeling always in the back of my mind, and seeing what Amy had to experience, really affected our time in India.

But then we do things like take a rickety ski lift up to this stupa in the poorest, filthiest, most oppressed state in India. We get up there and it’s serene beauty. There is a calm energy radiating from the place. We see the sun beginning to set, casting this warm light on the stupa, which is commemorating the stages of Buddha’s life. Off in the distance there is a beautiful temple, with a devotee slowly hitting a drum to focus your mind as you enter the sanctuary.

There are places like this all over India. It’s like the country has this vast ocean of spiritual energy below the surface. People have built temples and shrines where it gushes to the surface, and distributes this energy to the people.

But then you have to leave and go back down to earth. We walk past a bunch of tonga drivers that give that menacing leering look to Amy. This is what I’m talking about! India!!

I have no fucking idea what to think.

38 things learned in India

2010-10-30T02:44:00.000-07:00

1. They are like that only.

2. Overnight train ride in 1AC not so bad (if you have your own cabin).

3. Overnight train ride in 2AC is still creepy if you’re a woman.

4. Dal can become a necessity with almost every meal.

5. As an outsider, once you have lived in India for 4 years you can try street food and not die. But sometimes you can be a native born Indian and still be laid up for 4 days from the stuff.

6. Privacy is a myth.

7. There is hot and there is India hot.

8. Redheads are considered sluts. Being a redhead can earn you a slap in the face.

9. As a man, you can drop your trousers in the middle of crowded train station and no one cares.

10. Queue jumping? Nothing a sharp elbow can’t fix.

11. Intermissions happen in movies that don’t need intermissions (see: Inception).

12. Your concept of “clean” gets somewhat relaxed after 2 months. Not be changed forever but just as long as you’re there.

13. See above regarding clean clothes.

14. A cup of chai will set your day straight.

15. You don’t even notice the power cuts after a while…unless you paid up for the A/C room.

16. When a shop has the word “INTERNET” on it don’t assume that you can actually access the internet there.

17. Masala movies, masala relationships.

18. Love is life.

19. “Yes” can mean “No” but sometimes “Yes” unless the answer is definitely “No” then the answer is definitely “Yes.”

20. You have to be ready for Varanasi because it’s ready for you.

21. Hindus are born, not made.

22. There are a million ways to God, choose one or all of them if you like.

23. We seem to like Ganesha and Kali.

24. Cow pee can purify the soul (that’s what we heard, we really don’t know).

25. Cow poo is an excellent mosquito repellent (same, same as the cow pee).

26. Shatabdi Express is the king of trains.

27. We will never call a bus/auto rickshaw/cab/jeep/cycle rickshaw/hotel room/street corner/train/train platform/train station crowded outside of India ever again.

28. Saying “haa” for “Yes” is strangely addicting.

29. McDonald’s and Pizza Hut have security guards and A/C. Pizza Hut has margaritas!!

30. If you think it can’t get any worse, wait until it’s dark outside.

31. Indian food is glorious but not three times a day.

32. The Taj Mahal is indeed all it’s cracked up to be.

33. The Karma Sutra Temples are truly one of mankind’s treasures.

34. After a thousand generations and six families pooling their resources, one Dalit can break the cycle of poverty.

35. There is creation, there is preservation and there is destruction.

36. If you’re there long enough your head will start to wobble too.

37. One of most amazing things about the Lotus Temple is the ability of the Bahai to keep a group of Indians quiet.

38. They have a version of American Idol called Indian Idol and it’s good.

Dolphin watching

2010-10-20T05:25:00.000-07:00

Our first stop in Cambodia was Kratie, home to the Irawaddy river dolphins. They're a kind of flat-nosed dolphin native to the Mekong. We took a small boat out to the middle of the river to spy on some dolphins at sunset. We did catch a few at play, the charming little buggers.

But even better: The quiet, magic light on the Mekong. Love Cambodia.

Easy Riding on the Ho Chi Minh Trail

2010-10-20T04:58:00.000-07:00

Finally, we upload video. The Ho Chi Minh Trail, from a motorbike.

Best of Angkor Wat

2010-10-20T04:43:00.000-07:00

What could I possibly write to add to the literature on Angkor Wat? Nothing. GO.

Popping up in the most unexpected places ...

2010-10-20T04:37:00.000-07:00

So, we're looking at our map of Phnom Penh, and we spot the embassy for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

WTF.

We of course go and take pictures.

And then we look across the street, and what happens to be there? The Phnom Penh office of PricewaterhouseCoopers.

DOUBLE WTF.

A gas station Phnom Penh

2010-10-20T04:35:00.000-07:00

Sunrise on the Mekong

2010-10-20T04:32:00.000-07:00

Don Khong, Four Thousand Islands, Laos

Slow.ing.life.doooooown.

2010-10-20T04:21:00.000-07:00

Life on the Four Thousand Islands, a collection of small islands in Southern Laos, is slow. We chose Don Khong as our home for a few days. It is delicious. It is not exactly lazy, somehow? It is splendidly wonderful.

The primary form of transport:

The primary form of entertainment (note: Gabe is an EVIL checkers player):

Primary form of nutrition:

Primary form of worship:

My spirit animal

2010-10-20T04:18:00.000-07:00

An elephant emerges from the rocks.

Wat Pho, Champasak, Laos

Buddha in the trees

2010-10-20T04:14:00.000-07:00

The road to Wat Pho, Champasak, Laos

So, I've eaten a lot of rice in my 31 years

2010-10-20T04:09:00.000-07:00

But never in sticky Laotian tube form. LOVE.

Random corner restaurant, Pakse, Laos

Buses. And goats.

2010-10-20T04:05:00.000-07:00

After a few days in Hue, we crossed the border to Laos. It was a 12 hour bus ride.

We rode inside the bus. The goats rode on top.

Hue was just begging for a bike ride

2010-10-20T03:55:00.000-07:00

Hue had a cool citadel and great food, but really ... Our Hue was empty roads for biking.

My yobo, getting lost in the green ...

Death by cuteness in Hoi An

2010-10-20T03:52:00.000-07:00

Hoang Trinh Guesthouse, Hoi An, Vietnam

Best of the Central Highlands

2010-10-20T02:32:00.000-07:00

I want these in my garden. If I had a garden.

2010-10-20T02:03:00.000-07:00

Endlessly charmed by sensitive plants.

Easy Rider Tour - Day 5

2010-10-13T04:36:00.001-07:00

Easily one of the highlights of the Easy Rider tour was the access it gave us to the ethnic villages. This grandmother is part of the Gie hill tribe, which had been given government subsidies to move down from the mountains and closer to the main road, where the tribe could have some access to electricity and building materials. She preferred to live in her traditional hut, with a hammock as her only furniture and her food stored in bags hanging over her fire, which discourages animals.

This might discourage them, too. As part of her decor, to show her prowess as a hunter, she hung the dried skulls of monkeys and other animals she's hunted and eaten.

THESE ARE INSANE:

To be filed under unforgettable moments - realizing we are squatting under a ceiling of dead monkey skulls.

Easy Rider Tour - Day 4

2010-10-13T04:31:00.001-07:00

Remember what I said about making weaponry into art? At Eva Cafe in Kon Tum.

Easy Rider Tour - Day 3

2010-10-13T03:58:00.001-07:00

Day 3. We start of our day with a stroll through a local market. I debate buying a ridiculous lavender umbrella. My transition Ridiculous Asian is nearly complete.

Pepper plants! Chuse is known for its extraordinary peppers. Who knew peppers were 7 feet tall?

And also? Had no idea rubber grew in trees. Rubber plantations are scattered all through the Central Highlands. Best: the workers were flirting and chasing each other with gobs of raw rubber, which has the texture of Elmer's Glue. Some things are universal.

And to finish the day ... a salvage operation. Mines, missiles, artillery, and other battle detritus lay all over Vietnam. The Vietnamese, being Vietnamese, remake the scrap metal into tools, building materials, and sculpture. It is horrifying and beautiful.

Easy Rider Tour - Day 2

2010-10-13T03:40:00.000-07:00

Day two, we make it from Lak Lake up to Buon Ma Thuot City. Our day is full of sights like this:

And 20-foot pythons like this:

And insane trees like this:

And, of course, more artisans at work. This fellow makes pots for bonsai, hand shaping the decorations with cement.

We decided someday to have bonsai, so that we can have one of these planters, until we learned that bonsai are like, thousands of dollars. Maybe instead we can use this as a bathtub. Or Gabe-sized cereal bowl?

Easy Rider Tour - Day 1

2010-10-13T03:19:00.000-07:00

We spent five days motorbiking through Vietnam with the Dalat Easy Riders, a group of motorcycle tour guides who trek through the Central Highlands - or really, wherever you'd like to go. It blew our budget completely out of the water, and was worth every penny.

Here's Gabe, on the morning of our first day. Mount up!

Safety first.

One of our first stops was a rice wine factory in Nam Ban. "Wine" translates into "moonshine." "Factory" translates into "family's backyard." That little stream coming out of the green tube translates into "buzzed on the back of a motorbike."

A lot of trip was seeing artisans at work. This guy makes straw brooms. But not just any brooms. His brooms are renowned throughout the Central Highlands, and some people will only use his brooms. His brooms are a big deal.

This woman, a member of the Koho hill tribe (Vietnam has dozens of minority ethnic groups), makes baskets for a living. They are incredibly elegant and nearly indestructible. We were ready to toss our frame packs for a few baskets.

By far the most fascinating stops of Day 1, however, dealt with silk production.

Silk worm growers take newly hatched worms and leave then on racks to start growing cocoons. Little naked worm here wanted to play:

Once they've developed a cocoon, racks of larvae are kept until the prime time for harvesting - they only have a few days when the cocoon (the raw silk) is at its biggest, but before the larvae hatches.

Eventually, the cocoons are harvested. The poop is collected as fertilizer, then the cocoons are shipped off to a factory, where they are boiled and strung onto machines that pull them into silk thread. The choicest larvae sometimes get picked out for eating.

And then comes the dying and weaving. Nom nom nom.

New favorite food alert

2010-09-25T06:34:00.001-07:00

Except for the occasional pina colada or Jewish macaroon, I’ve never been a huge fan of coconut. I remember Vita and those other coconut water brands sending boxes of product to the office last year, and always hating the taste. But I became a coconut convert in Vietnam. Especially when the coconut has been on ice, and especially when it’s 1,000 degrees outside, and especially when the vendor hacks it open on the street with a giant machete and a smile, and then sprinkles the flesh with a little sugar and crushed ice.

(Please note the size differential between Gabe and the average Vietnamese woman. Giggle.)

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Tomato room!

2010-09-25T06:26:00.000-07:00

Seeing Ben in Bangkok and visiting his school, where he has recently been promoted to head of the English language program, was in every way a treat. We couldn’t get enough of his classroom, Tomato, and his obvious joy in living and breathing Thailand. Plus, everything in his school is in fucking miniature! It’s brilliant!

Gabe naps on bed made for 4-year-old Thai children.

MINIATURE TOILETS OMG.

MINIATURE ANIMAL COMPUTERS OMG OMG!

The boys, at the Tomato table. OMG OMG OMG.

We love you Ben-jamm-in. Til we meet again …

Happy long time

2010-09-25T06:24:00.000-07:00

We made it to Southeast Asia! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY.

Exclamation point.

This pretty much sums up how we feel in Thailand.

Wat Arun, Bangkok, Thailand

Lies, lies, lies

2010-09-25T06:22:00.001-07:00

Now that we’re safely out of the country, I can tell you all about how I bribed my way into India.

It starts with Yanik and Andy’s wedding. Days before we left New York for the Chermeo World Tour, I bought a ticket from Delhi to Cancun for their celebration. Vince got me an upgrade. All was awesome.

Nearly five months later, two weeks in India under our belt, Gabe takes me to the airport in Delhi. I manage to get out of the city in one of the last flights before the first major monsoon rain. Awesome.

Yanik and Andy’s wedding. Awesome.

I arrive back in Delhi five days later, pooped. I get to immigration.

Skinny mustached immigration guard: You can’t come in.

Me: Why not?

Mustache: Your visa says you must wait two months. Did you not read your visa?

Me: Hunh. No.

Mustache hands me back my passport, and written across my Indian visa (which I’ve had since February) are the words, “two months must separate any visits in India.”

Me: I’m so sorry! I never looked at it! I was in India with my husband and he’s waiting for me in the airport and I went back to the U.S. for my best friend’s wedding!

Mustache: What?

I repeat myself, and he calls for Senior Immigration Lady, who listens to my plea. “Best friend” gets upgraded to “sister,” as I attempt to play on Indian devotion to family and wedding and tragedy (my poor lonely husband worried about me out in the terminal!).

Senior Lady: Did you not read your visa?

Me: No.

She stares at me, and takes my passport to some back room.

Mustache leers at me for the next 15 minutes.

Senior Lady comes back with a gleeful, malicious look on her face, and I wonder what’s about to happen. She hands me a piece of blank white paper and a pen. She says, “Write down what I say.”

Senior Lady: I have been traveling in India with my husband. My husband is waiting for me in India. We have no business in India. I went back to the United States for a medical emergency. Please grant me a medical emergency visa. I came back to India to meet my husband, who is waiting for me.

I dumbly write down the lie word for word, signing my name, passport and visa number. Never mind that I was actually in Mexico for the past five days, but who’s counting lies now? I fill out a bunch of other medical emergency visa forms, in triplicate, because this is India, and if there aren’t 27 pieces of paper attached, it isn’t official. Mustache stamps me through, and continues to leer.

Senior Lady: Now, can you do a little something for the guards?

I am gripped with anxiety, as I have been visually raped at least 100 times since arriving in India. Sure, Senior Lady that just had me fill out official immigration documents filled with lies. What can I do?

Senior Lady: Can you buy some stuff in duty free? They can’t do it with their passports. You don’t have to pay, we pay.

They pay? Not much of a bribe. Okay, I can do this.

So Mustache ditches his post and the line of travelers waiting at it, and we sprint to the duty free. He whispers a little something to a duty free guy in a pink shirt. Pink Shirt takes me by the arm, grabs a plastic basket, and proceeds to fill it with 6 bottles of Johnnie Walker Black. He dumps me in line, and Mustache hands me a fistful of rupees. A large sign at the register clearly posts that people can buy two bottles of alcohol per passport, in either USD or Euros. Ah, so this is where I get screwed!

The line of 5 people takes 45 minutes, because it is an Indian line, and that’s what Indian lines do. Mustache stands a few feet away, leering and every once in awhile getting approached by another immigration guard. By the time I’m at the front of the line, I have 2 more bottles of scotch in my basket, a measly 500 rupees (around $18) in my hand, and wondering if Gabe has panicked yet.

(I didn’t know that in his spare time, he had flipped through his passport and actually read the visa, and began panicking mildly, and wondering how much the bribe to get me in would cost us. Apparently he decided if the bribe was more than 1,000 rupees he’d boycott the rest of India and we’d go straight to Thailand.)

At the front of the line, a female employee starts telling me I can’t buy that much liquor, when Pink Shirt elbows her aside and pulls another 2 bottles of Johnnie Walker Black from behind the counter. I show him my meager collection of rupees and ask if I can pay by credit card for this now $100 pile of booze. He yells in Hindi to Mustache, who yells in Hindi to some unknown other man, and for the next 10 minutes a relay of rupees makes its way into its hands. Always to my hands – never directly to the cashier 12 inches away from me, which would apparently breach some code of ethics.

Two hours after my flight landed, I hand several plastic bags of Johnnie Walker to Mustache and his friends. He says thank you (!!!!!), and I go find my backpack lying on the floor in baggage claim. I walk out to find a very stinky and very relieved Gabe, who has in this time talked to a security guard who informed him that he shouldn’t start to panic until at least THREE hours after the flight landed.

Namaste, India.

Hungry

2010-09-25T06:15:00.000-07:00

Over the past year, we’ve talked a lot about the course of our lives and careers, and how we want them to intersect. In a very simple sense, we’ve realized how fucking rich we are, and what responsibility we have to give back to those who don’t have as much. It means different things for both of us.

I’ll let Gabe speak for himself. But for me, for now, I can’t with a clear conscience waste any more time. I think about my twenties working in magazines in New York, and how hungry I was – I did anything and everything to survive, and eventually, to excel, and hopefully, abstractly, to write stories that matter. Not from the day I started working on September 10, 2001, to when I was laid off on November 19, 2009 did I not panic that I wasn’t moving forward fast enough, scrapping for whatever recognition I could. I was hungry in the kind of way that is dangerous, directionless, and insatiable, and in my first few years in New York managed to do enough damage to myself and my body for a lifetime.

My goal when I graduated college was that within 5 years I’d be a staff writer at a major consumer magazine, a place to do that “stories that matter” thing. Five years later, there I was a staff writer at BusinessWeek, still hungry and dissatisfied, watching the magazine world – which I’d fantasized about since I could read - fall apart around me. I can only imagine what terrors gripped the people who had devoted their entire lives and careers to the magazine. As for me, I can pinpoint maybe a dozen moments and stories in my career that I felt like MATTERED, which maybe at one point would have felt like an accomplishment, but now is just sad and embarrassing. Maybe it’s that my definition of “matter” has changed, or that I will always be dissatisfied, and maybe both of those are good things. I don’t know.

But I do know that I feel like I’ve wasted time and haven’t done enough. And I haven’t had any REAL challenges. I mean, my parents paid for college. I’ve never been poor. I was vaccinated for disease. I always had proper nutrition, for chrissakes. At the basic level, I’ve never had to survive. Whatever hardship or danger I have experienced, it is because I put myself squarely in its way. While I wouldn’t change how I’ve lived, I’m unsure what it’s worth. If I feel that my path to divinity is service, as I now do, I have to accept I am nowhere near God. And for the first time in my life, I really want to be.

We spent our last few weeks in India volunteering at Apne Aap, a non-governmental organization in Delhi that fights to eradicate sex trafficking in India and around the globe. It was an eye-opening window into the operations of NGOs, the skills we have to offer them, and how inspiring and small and agonizing the steps are to change. Working side-by-side with women who had devoted their lives to abolishing slavery, as we have come to see the sex trade, was a revelation. Learning about trafficking shattered our humored view of red-light districts and prostitution. Our day with a young girl who had been sold by her family and adamantly refused to go back to her village gave us the tiniest glimpse of rural poverty. Though the details are unclear, it seems she was being trafficked right under our noses for domestic labor, which often leads to prostitution – and it was no extraordinary day.

I left India with a different kind of desire than the one that has always pushed me, one that is not driven by fear of failure or inadequacy. I want to do more, and to do more with purpose. If I hated the daily elements of the grind in that country – the demoralizing, dehumanizing, filthy grind – I will always love India for giving me the gift of a new kind of hunger. Thank you.

Beatles whisper

2010-09-22T17:00:00.000-07:00

The Beatles famously spent a long stretch at the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram in Swarg Ashram, where they, too, ate vegetarian and wrote most of the White Album. I would guess this is where they started diving into the funkier spiritual side of things, but I make this assumption based on the fact that I don’t think anyone can spend a significant amount of time in India and NOT start diving into the funkier spiritual side of things. But for the real Beatles story, Craig is the person to ask.

Beatlemaniac or no, it was hard not to get swept up in the magic of the ashram, which is now abandoned and returning to the jungle. Twisted into the vines are mossy statues and tiny shrines, and the empty, ramshackle bungalows seem to melt into the trees. It is ghostly, and beautiful. You can almost feel the faint images of former ashramites meditating and making music.

If you need a soundtrack for the visit, Gabe spent our week at the ashram humming My Sweet Lord.

Ashraming

2010-09-22T16:55:00.000-07:00

We spent a week at the ashram Parmath Niketan in Swarg Ashram, Rishikesh, practicing yoga, eating sattvik vegetarian, and doing a whole lotta nothing else. It was glorious, and as long as we didn’t venture into Rishikesh proper and stayed on the ashram premises (Shiva festival overtakes Rishikesh! Agh!) it was a very tranquil week. Let me give you a compare-and-contrast:

The path from our dorm to the yoga studio:

Outside the communal kitchen, where we ate vegetarian food on straw mats:

The view from the yoga hall:

One of the many touches of inspiration:

Life on the street (please forgive the sideways-ness of this recording):

Burning bodies

2010-09-22T16:54:00.000-07:00

Death in Varanasi is to be celebrated, both for the Hindus who are lucky enough to die and be cremated there, and for the caste of fire men who manage the cremations. For me, Varanasi is all of India: ancient, frightening, warm, steeped in sad caste traditions, entrepreneurial, occasionally horrifying, sacred, and profane, the line between private and public living blown to bits.

Take dying. Just dipping into the Ganges is enough to wash away a lifetime of sins. If, as a Hindu, you’re lucky enough to die in Varanasi, the holiest of holy Ganges cities, and wealthy enough to pay for a purification and cremation on one of the burning ghats along the river, you’re liberated from the horrors of reincarnation and your family celebrates your bliss. Your body is sunk into the Ganges (whose water people DRINK) and it’s a happy ending for you.

Not for your widowed wife. Because in traditional Hinduism, men who die and leave wives behind aren’t just dying – they are abandoning their wives to the world, and those widows are outcast, because they must have done something horrible to deserve that fate. Though the traditional suicide-by-climbing-on-the-funeral-pyre-of-your-husband has mostly disappeared, widows are still often abandoned by their families for the shame of being widowed, and turn to begging and prostitution to support themselves. Being widowed carries as bad or worse of a social stigma as being divorced. (Note that when wives die, husbands are free to remarry and start over, collecting more dowry, which is one of the root causes of violence against women and bride burning, which is a whole ‘nother story.) Which is horrifying.

Now there are several local organizations in Varanasi that serve as orphanages for widows, taking them in and providing shelter and trying to build a sustainable life for widows. Life after death, if you will. Which is wonderful.

Anyways, back to dying. So dying in Varanasi is auspicious and happy. But touching dead bodies and otherwise dealing with death is very, very taboo. So only very low-caste Dalits (Untouchables) are relegated to the task of preparing the dead for cremation, building the pyres, carrying the dead to the river, bathing them in the Ganges and lighting the fires. The caste system, no matter what anybody says about India and its progress and its vaulted democracy, is ALIVE. Which is horrifying.

But the Untouchables in Varanasi have capitalized on Hinduism’s desire to die on the Ganges, and have instituted a tax on all cremations. The tax goes to the head of the caste, who has a giant home on the river bank, a showy display of wealth among the squalor and quite a social statement from an Untouchable. Which is pretty great. Of course, there is no indication that he shares that wealth among others in his caste, who are doing the literal dirty work. Not so great, and yet another perpetuation of the system which has forced them to work with dead bodies all day.

Back to dying.

All night and day in Varanasi, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, men come barreling down the tiny, cow-strewn streets of the Old City chanting and ringing bells, bearing bamboo pallets of dead people bound in orange silks. They eventually land at either Manikarnika ghat or Harishchandra ghat, where wood is bought – sandalwood is the most expensive – for the burning. Priests say a blessing, and a male relative in attendance submerges the body in the river (more than 100 points of entry for raw sewage into the Ganges, in addition to all these bodies. Chew on that) or scoops river water over it. Then the body is placed on the pyre, where a fire man stokes the flames with a long bamboo pole. Due to the dampness, it can take awhile for a fire to get going, and the body smokes for some time. It takes about 3 hours for a body to burn fully. Sometimes the fire men have to use an accelerant to get the flames going.

But a stubborn fire isn’t the only delay. Sometimes, the traffic of bodies at the ghats gets too high, and after ceremoniously running through the Old City, the bodies of the dead are left waiting in the sun before they can be cremated. Discretion is nonexistent. Attendees leave the bodies scattered along the ghats in the middle of pedestrian traffic until their turn to dunk and burn, orange silks flapping in the humid breeze, goats and cows wandering past, people looking indifferently past them to the action on the lit pyres. Sometimes the dead don’t burn at an even pace, and an overenthusiastic fire man clumsily poking at the blaze can send a spine with a skull attached tumbling to the sidewalk, while mourners look on in dismay.

Gabe and I almost died ourselves when we saw this. Lucky we were in Varanasi. What is the appropriate response to the Pez dispenser remains of a human repeatedly rolling off a burning stack of wood as a boy with a bamboo pole keeps trying to stack it on top? Then another limb of unknown provenance fell off the pyre. When we finally got up to leave the ghat, smoke and the smell of the dead burning our eyes, the silks unwound from another body stacked on yet another pile of wood, and an expressionless face stared up at us.

Not 20 feet from the pyres, on a separate section of the ghat, washermen were beating laundry against the steps leading down into the Ganges, totally indifferent to the charred carcasses being sunk beside them. Another ghat down, kids were diving off platforms into the water, just being kids. Another ghat down, men were brushing their teeth with scoops of Ganges. Another ghat down, buffalo were cooling off in the river. Another ghat down, women in damp saris were combing their wet hair, regrouping after a ceremonious dip. Yet out of respect for the dead, tourists are asked not to take any pictures of the burnings – which they are welcome to watch, and where, of course, hustlers are selling disturbingly close-up action shots and postcards of the pyres for a few rupees apiece.

Filth. Money. Spiritual cleansing. Play. Death. Animal. And celebration.

FUCKING INDIA.

Cow traffic

2010-09-22T16:51:00.000-07:00

Of all my cow encounters on the Chermeo World Tour, this was among the most frustrating:

Old City, Varanasi, India.

She was totally steppin

2010-09-22T16:50:00.000-07:00

Waiting for the ganga aarti, Varanasi, India.

Sunrise on the Ganges

2010-09-22T16:48:00.000-07:00

Varanasi, India.

A peek at life on the river

2010-09-22T16:41:00.000-07:00

Morning meditation:

Swimming with water buffalo:

Collecting, shaping, drying, selling cow poop:

Waiting for the waters to rise:

River pujas, big and small

2010-09-22T16:06:00.000-07:00

Varanasi, Hindu's holiest city, is also one of the oldest cities in existence. You can just feel the ancientness - not to mention see and smell it, too. Wealthy Indians come to Varanasi when elderly and ill, in hopes that they are lucky enough to die in the holy city, cremated on one of the burning ghats and sunk into the Ganges, releasing themselves from the cycle of reincarnation. But cremated on the river or not, all Hindus are expected to make a pilgrimage to Varanasi at least once in their lives, plunge into the Ganges to purge their sins and pay homage to Shiva and the other gods.

Every evening the river ghats are packed with believers for the ganga aarti, or ceremony honoring the divinity in the river. Sadhus wander about, give and take blessings, and occasionally try to escape the pursuit of pilgrims:

The main ganga aarti takes place on Dasaswamedh Ghat, where hundreds gather every night on the steps or in river boats to watch the priests conduct the ceremony.

But all along the Ganges you will see smaller ceremonies by the faithful. On our way home from Dasaswamedh Ghat one night, we passed by these boys on a small platform, doing their own modest ceremony, no audience or glamor involved.

The next morning, the platform had been submerged by the river, all signs of holy ceremony erased. Loincloth-clad boys were diving in and around the platform, screeching with glee. India.

I shalt not ever bitch about trains again

2010-09-22T09:30:00.000-07:00

Especially when I have a seat.

Haridwar rail station, India.

A taste of travel in India

2010-09-22T09:26:00.000-07:00

As Gabe says: "There is no holiday, no festival, this is not a clown car."

An ordinary day, an ordinary bus ride, an ordinary village in Bihar.

Our Buddha pilgrimage, part 5

2010-09-22T09:21:00.000-07:00

Okay, so it's not a holy site, or sight. But easily one of the highlights of our month in Bihar.

Monk laundry:

Our Buddha pilgrimage, part 4

2010-09-22T09:10:00.000-07:00

Buddha lived for 12 years in Rajgir, preaching, meditating and creating his second wheel of law. The Japanese built beautiful, peaceful structure on Vulture's Peak, the Vishwashanti Stupa, in his honor. It is, bar none, one of the most beautiful, serene places we have ever experienced.

The view from the stupa:

Of course, this is still India. Requisite useless, out of shape police officers with guns and bats at the foot of a Buddhist pilgrimage site, check:

Our Buddha pilgrimage, part 3

2010-09-22T09:01:00.000-07:00

Nalanda University was once home to tens of thousands of monks who came to Rajgir, Bihar to study Buddhism. The school was ransacked in the 12th century by Mogul invaders, and it is said that the texts of Nalanda burned for three months. The buildings and dormitories are in ruins now, but are a fascinating look at one of the first major universities in the world.

Gabe, trying out of a monk bed for size:

Our Buddha pilgrimage, part 2

2010-09-22T08:54:00.000-07:00

Sarnath, where Buddha first began his teachings.

Our Buddha pilgrimage, part 1

2010-09-22T08:41:00.000-07:00

Buddha first attained enlightenment in the tiny town of Bodhgaya, in the Indian state of Bihar. Bihar, which borders Nepal, is the poorest state in the country, and where we spent most of our time. Bodhgaya, though, is incredible - basically a United Nations of Buddhism, and home to monks and pilgrims from all over the world. Stunning.

Buddha was sitting under a bodhi tree when he first reached enlightenment. A descendent of that tree lives on in Bodhgaya, and serves as the main pilgrimage point for Buddhists and spiritual tourists.

While Buddha was meditating in Bodhgaya, a rain began to fall. The story has it that all of the animals came out to shelter him so he could continue meditating undisturbed. This image of the cobra protecting Buddha is ubiquitous in Buddhist monasteries and sculpture.

The Sri Lankan Mahabodhi Temple, which houses the bodhi tree, is also home to a stunning meditation garden, filled with tiny pagodas, meditation platforms, and inscriptions. It is the place modern India forgot, and it is glorious.

I like monks. Even their feet.

So. India.

2010-09-22T07:40:00.000-07:00

We spent two months in India, and it's hard to put to words our feelings, which is likely why my ass hasn't blogged in two months. I dunno. Here's a go: Inspiring. Overwhelming. Fucking filthy. Stunning. Disappointing. Crushing. Oppressive. Enraging. And full, full, full of love.

Love.

I think that's probably the strongest response we had to India. Not necessarily love for India. But love, and the importance of love, and the strength of love, and the importance of taking love and using it as a fount of strength. Because in a place like India, love is all that will save you, and keep you steady during the highest highs (which you will experience) and the lowest lows (which you will experience). We thought long and hard in India about the worst impulses of mankind, and the incredible strides people make to amend those impulses. We want to help. We followed Buddha's footsteps. We traveled through the poorest and most cosmopolitan places India has to offer. We thought a looooooooot about God - as one friend joked, every rickshaw ride you take in Delhi will make you understand why Indians are so religious.

I'm still sorting out the details, but India has made a believer out of me.

One of our worst moments of our summer in India was getting stuck in the middle of a Shiva festival at the mouth of the Ganges. Hundreds of thousands of men and boys were collecting in Haridwar and Rishikesh for the festival, sleeping in makeshift camps, crowding the roads, shitting in the streets, squeezing into any mode of transportation available, and pinching, groping, staring and leering at anyone they could. We were stuck on a local bus for hours for a 30-kilometer trip, sweat streaming down us, kids crammed between our legs, spicy sweat thick in the air, staring out the windows and trying to catch a breeze while cursing the boys dressed in orange pilgrim rags and the horrifying heat of the bus and our stupidity for ever traveling to India.

Then we passed by a red truck parked in one of the camps - it was a typical people mover, filthy, caked with mud and shit, with metal cots nailed into the bed, boys in rags sleeping in, under, and on top of it. Nothing special to it, except for a giant decal on the passenger door. It said, "love is life."

Love is life. That's about right.

A year ago, we promised ...

2010-07-11T09:59:00.000-07:00

Love and laughter, all the days of our life.

Kilauea, Kauai, Hawaii, USA

Um, It's Art Right?

2010-07-08T05:24:00.000-07:00

In the isolated village of Khajuraho are a group of temples built by the Chandela dynasty around 1000 AC. They are covered in stunning Kama Sutra carvings that put the Taj Mahal to some shame, because for all that the Taj is all about love, you don’t see men pleasuring three women at a time there, do you?

But seriously. For all that it appears that the Chandelas were just hornballs into horse fucking (seriously) the Khajuraho temples were where we received our first real education in the balance that exists in Hinduism. The extraordinary beauty of it, for us, is that Hinduism seems to actually recognize that humans are, you know, human. In order to have creation, you need destruction. In order to have beauty, you need ugly. And in the case of the Kama Sutra, in order to have a healthy, complete, and focused mind, you need a healthy, complete, and focused body. Which is achieved through sex.

Get inspired.

Shiva the Destroyer (Sunday, July 4)

2010-07-07T09:49:00.000-07:00

One of the most common observations about India is that spirituality is bound to everyday, ordinary living. Faith is twisted into life in beautiful, devastating, and totally quotidian ways. But we didn’t really get it until we stopped at an evening ceremony at a small temple devoted to Shiva, in Khajuraho.

Twice a day a holy man leads the ceremony, blesses the devotees, who sing and pray, then it’s over and everyone goes on with their day, hustling for tourist dollars, tending to children, sweeping the streets. It takes maybe 15 minutes. It is beautiful and astonishingly abrupt, and as cacophonous, crowded, hot and hectic as anything is in this country.

But there is a moment – just a moment – when the faithful press their cheeks against the temple, the incantations fall into a cacophonous harmony, and you feel the press of the priest’s finger on your third eye, that India almost makes sense. We hope for more moments.

Local Indian bus. Worst decision ever. (Friday, July 2)

2010-07-07T09:40:00.000-07:00

So, all we can say is, a 20-hour bus ride in Egypt has got NOTHING on a 6-hour bus ride in India. Not a fucking thing. 110 degree heat. No air conditioning. 125 Indians on a bus with 50 seats, not including the ones on the roof with the tomatoes and feed. We test the strains of our traveling endurance and marriage. We make it through.

The highlights:

We get a demonstration of a lime juicer an hour before we leave Jhansi for Khajuraho.

The view from the window at a bus station, somewhere. Not sure where. This is a quiet day.

The best Coca-Cola I have ever drank in my life. The most uncomfortable I have ever been in my life. Please note that I am fully covered up despite the heat and humidity in order to try and stave off as much leering as possible. I am unsuccessful.

Upshot of the local Indian bus ride: Unforgettable experience, that we will NEVER REPEAT.

Rickshaw through Agra (Thursday, July 1)

2010-07-07T09:26:00.000-07:00

On a relatively quiet afternoon in the small town of Agra, we took a cycle rickshaw from the Eastern Gate of the Taj Mahal to the Agra Fort. In these two minutes of video, enjoy donkeys laden with bricks, bovine traffic, and me almost getting peed on by a water buffalo.

It was a lot of pee.

The Taj Mahal (Thursday, July 1)

2010-07-07T09:19:00.000-07:00

Gorgeous. No words. Gorgeous. And, of course, a nice way to pay tribute to your “favorite” wife (though I think I’d still prefer to be the “only”).

34 things learned in Lebanon (Tuesday, June 29)

2010-07-07T09:16:00.000-07:00

1) The flag looks like a Christmas tree. It is, in fact, cedar.

2) Middle East Air will ask you, before issuing you a boarding pass, if you have ever been to Israel.

3) Immigration really does comb your passport for Israeli stamps.

4) Lonely Planet is useless in Lebanon.

5) The Lebanese LOVE German football.

6) There are faaaaaaaar more Lebanese outside the country (mostly in Australia and Brazil) than in the country.

7) Mint leaves in hummus. Good.

8) The Hezbollah “tent city” in downtown Beirut is to be avoided.

9) Due to the rebuilding efforts after some 40-odd years of war, Beirut is new. Like, occasionally, West-Palm-Beach-too-much-sandstone-and-bright-lights new.

10) People carry several different SIM cards. Different hos, different area codes.

11) Colombia is no longer an acceptable fake nationality, due to the Lebanese wanting to talk about cocaine and assuming you are a rich drug dealer. We have moved on to being Argentinian.

12) Palestinian refugees are not allowed to work or live outside of refugee camps. They must attend Palestinian-only schools, and are generally looked upon with much scorn by the Lebanese.

13) Filipinos comprise the majority of household employees and caregivers, while Syrians fill the ranks of construction workers and Sri Lankans often do sanitation work.

14) One of the reasons Amy is stared at so frequently in Lebanon is that most Asians are laborers or caretakers. Because of the lack of tourism, it is VERY rare to see an Asian woman of any means.

15) Lebanon has more than a 20% unemployment rate.

16) Backpackers can be assholes too. Our hostel manager asked us to pay our nights upfront, half apologizing, saying that last week a couple ran out on them in the middle of the night without paying their bill after staying a WEEK. May that couple be cursed with traveler’s diarrhea and faulty plumbing for the rest of their travels.

17) Lebanese glitterati, can, without any sense of irony, be viciously anti-American while wearing American designers, listening to Michael Jackson and buying prints of American celebrities.

18) Patience, when bargaining, is a virtue. Stand around long enough without rushing a decision and the price will drop by at least 30%.

19) Standing on the side of a highway picking up buses can actually be pretty fun.

20) When redeveloping downtown, the crown jewel of post-war redevelopment, city planners kicked out the independent shop owners and instead built a mall. It is sad.

21) Battle of the Hotels. The strip between the former Holiday Inn and another high-rise downtown was one of the deadliest places in downtown Beirut during the war. Snipers used to pick people off from the upper levels of the hotels, while kidnappers would throw their victims off the roofs.

22) People automatically assume you haven’t been to Israel. It is wise not to correct their mistake.

23) Fattoush. Good.

24) Cats. Mangy.

25) The majority of industry in Lebanon is based on trade, much the same as the ancient Phoenicians.

26) A great deal of wealth in the country came from arms trading during the war. As one circumspect local said, “The war made a lot of people in the country really rich. Why do you think it lasted so long?”

27) People do not recycle.

28) Do not wander refugee camps without a local.

29) Power outages. All the time. Often without you knowing it. We were on “emergency” generators at least half the time we were in the country.

30) Due to the unreliable power sources, people charge their personal electronics whenever, wherever. Example: At a hip restaurant in Gemmayze, girls in skintight outfits and giant Gucci bags will order food, then crawl underneath the table to find an outlet and plug in their Iphone.

31) If people give you a “tourist” price, and you just hand them the “local” price, they’ll grudgingly accept it.

32) On the highways, walking through traffic, boys will sell everything from stuffed toy dogs to squeaking handpuppets to swords. Yes, swords.

33) Le Chef is our jam.

34) Shit is fucking complicated.

Sanctions against Syria. Really?

2010-07-07T08:57:00.000-07:00

So, the U.S. government recently renewed a number of clumsy economic sanctions against Syria, including those on technology. Their value is questionable.

Yes, we know all the bad things that the Syrian government supports and has supported in the past. But we also know that it is trying to develop as a country, and that the government does not always represent the will or the heart of the people (uh, hellooooooooooo George Dubya!). Syrian NGOs and other non-profits are trying to build networks and infrastructure, educate their people, and provide access to a world outside of the conservative Middle East. Isn't that what we want, too?

But we have a friend working to try to develop legitimate technology infrastructure in Syria, and she is stymied by the fact that she can't buy a damn Microsoft product. She can't rely on support for SaS products that she would rely on in lieu of Microsoft. Her one channel to the Internet is controlled by the government. And while her IT development work, which ultimately aims to aid non-profits in the field of education, is definitely hampered by sanctions which nobody will say definitely DOES hamper terrorism, executives from top U.S. technology companies, including Microsoft, are meeting and building relationships with officials across Syria. That doesn't sound like economic sanctions to me. Or sanctions with any weight, whatsoever.

It's a complicated issue, and obviously one that I'm too ignorant to really address. Think tanks around the world are tasked to deal with this. But in my gut, I know it's wrong. Being in the Middle East is frustrating, infuriating, and more frightening, in some ways, than expected. I did not enjoy being there. But it seems like what we're doing is wrong. Much of the resentment is deserved. Why do we say one thing, and do another? How can we have any push as a moral authority - if we are one, period - when we are fucking lying about actions that just plain hurt people that want to help themselves?

Okay. Soapbox: Exit.

Without a house, not without chores

2010-07-07T08:55:00.001-07:00

I wonder when the next time is that we’ll shower, and then NOT need to squeegee out our bathroom.

Pension Al-Nazir, Beirut, Lebanon

Love America, hate America?

2010-07-07T08:54:00.000-07:00

Lebanese people aren’t so much fans of Americans.

Sometimes it’s outright, awkward dislike. Example: The guy who works at our hostel introduced us to another couple in the lobby one afternoon. He says: “They’re Americans too! I hate Americans! Ha, ha! I hate Americans!”

Other times, it’s slightly more subtle. Example: One night, we sat in a hipster bar in Gemmayze while the crowd ferociously cheered for Germany, against Ghana, in the World Cup. A few nights later, we sat in a café across the street and watched the crowd freak out with joy, cheering for Ghana, against the U.S. Like, stop everything, whistles and horns freak out.

And yet – A hipster gallery on the same block sells prints of Jimi Hendrix. The “Corleone” restaurant is entirely based on American cinema iconography. The DJs in the local bars mix Akon and the theme from Pulp fiction. Live bands play covers, badly, of decades-old Pearl Jam. Everyone is wearing 7 for all Mankind.

If you hate us so much, then why …? Or is this why you hate us?

You want us to pay WHAT?!

2010-07-07T08:49:00.000-07:00

Downtown Beirut is stunningly lovely, if a little shiny. It’s without the charm or grace that I’m sure it had before the war tore it apart. Today, the brand-new construction (the city was almost entirely rebuilt in the mid-1990s) echoes the facades of the former city, but right now all of the new buildings, even the gorgeous grand mosque, are very Florida. The city would benefit from some wear.

Wear, of course, is different from war, the signs of which are plentiful. Bombed-out buildings, piles of rubble, and stories about snipers here and kidnappers there are everywhere you turn. The power goes in and out all over Lebanon constantly, and you are likely running from an emergency generator without even knowing it.

But in the heart of downtown, at the rebuilt Place de E’toile and the newly built clocktower (sponsored by Rolex, of course), it’s all luxury shops, fancy hotels and Lexus and BMW SUVs. And cafes, lots of cafes.

It’s gorgeous.

It’s also retarded. We wandered the Place de E’toile late one evening, browsing menus and thinking we’d stop for tea and a small bite to eat. We glanced at the menu at one crowded, casual burgers-and-fries place that seemed promising. The manager informs us that there is a $50 minimum PER PERSON to sit down. At what would be the equivalent of an NYU student joint in the city.
$100 for a night. We thought of what that could be. Dinner and drinks at Fatty Crab. Dinner without booze at Babbo. An hourlong massage. Mani, pedi, and beauty products at Rescue. Sushi at the Princeville. FIVE NIGHTS of lodging.

All of those things seem reasonable for $100. Not a burger and hummus.

The story was repeated elsewhere, at all of the other cafes. The cheapest café we came across, at the edge of downtown, had no food minimum and “competitive” pricing – $14 for a sandwich, $18 for a burger -- but a $10 cover per person to watch the World Cup game. The World Cup, by the way, is being broadcast for free in Lebanon by Al-Jazeera due to a government subsidy. Seriously, a soccer subsidy.

There is something really ballsy about a city so fully committed to moving on from war and finding a fresh start, hedonistic and ridiculous as it is. We moved on, though. Place d’Etoile. Pretty, yes. Tacky, yes.

Admirable – we think so?

Palestine in Beirut (Friday, June 25)

2010-07-07T08:43:00.001-07:00

So, we’re non-Arab Americans. By default, without consciously knowing it, or thinking it, we tend to tacitly accept the state of Israel. Or support it. Or whatever. Right? I mean, for me especially. I grew up with Holocaust survivors visiting my junior high, waiting to play with my friends until they were done with Hebrew school, being proud that Koreans were considered that “new Jews” (read: family-focused, well-assimilated, academically and financially successful) of the U.S., joking that I should get to go on a Birthright trip alongside everyone else I knew. My first love was a Conservative Jew, and I seriously, albeit briefly, considered following him to Israel to work on a kibbutz for a summer. Because of course Israel was a Jewish birthright.

Because of course Jews needed a country. Christ. I think I was midway through college before I even considered that Israel hadn’t always existed as a safe haven and rightful home for the Jews. But I didn’t think of myself as politically pro-Israel, either. Israel just was.

When Gabe and I traveled to Israel a few years ago, we completely fell in love. We loved the food, the culture, the people, the energy, and the pure magic of the place. Because Israel is magic, no matter what your religion or politics. The sadness and violence there is tempered by a joie de vivre unlike anything we’ve seen anywhere else in the world, and though we were depressed by the walls and the checkpoints, the endless three-ring binders filled with Palestinian names and teenagers toting guns, we still loved it. It is gorgeous country.

Whose country it is, of course, is The Question, the Endless Tragic Painful Miserable Warfaring Impossible Fucking Forever Question. And one that we’ve never REALLY asked ourselves. But our two-month tour of Islamic North Africa and the Middle East has been capped by an afternoon in the Palestinian refugee camps in West Beirut, where displaced refugees without citizenship or protections are trapped with separate-and-not-equal schools and no access to jobs or resources outside of the camps (where, not coincidentally, Hezbollah has a stronghold). We’ve had our first conversations with legitimately non-anti-Semitic, yet fiercely anti-Israel, Arabs about the creation of state of Israel, forcing us to question assumptions we didn’t even know we had.

Fuck.

Thanks, Najla, for giving us the opening. We’ll see you … somewhere?

Feeling empowered, or not

2010-07-07T08:41:00.000-07:00

The last bit of traveling I did before we left for the Chermeo World Tour was a quick reporting trip to Dallas in early February for book research. It was pretty routine – 3 days, 3 nights, back to New York in time for the weekend.

I called a gypsy cab to our apartment, finishing off some notes on the 25-minute ride to the airport. Met Tyler, then a nap until we land in Dallas. I’m not feeling so hot on the plane, but no big thing. We rent a car, get to the Galleria, have a beer, tuck in early for the long day ahead.

By 3 a.m. I am full-blown sick and so uncomfortable I can’t sleep. I ask the concierge if they have a pharmacy in the hotel, and they don’t, so they arrange for a cab to take me to the nearest 24-hour CVS. By 3:45 a.m. I am back in the hotel, over-the-counter drugs in my hand, on my laptop filling out an online prescription for Walgreens that I can pick up the next morning. I check to see that my AOL blog is up without a hitch, return some emails, finally get to sleep.

9 a.m., Tyler and I are done with breakfast and headed to Walgreens. I take my pills and we move on to a day of interviews, led and organized by me. A few days go by, we find ourselves back in New York.

Tyler and I become new best friends, we get the work done, all is good. Not at all spectacular.

I mean, it’s all so simple, right? But I had a moment the other day, when I was in yet ANOTHER uncomfortable situation, feeling alienated as a woman and confounded by the simplest task, a little afraid to speak up, made awkward and self-conscious by the men staring at me, confused by the language and the customs, and completely frustrated and unsure of myself and what to do and how to do it, even if I knew what the hell was the right thing to do in the first place. And I flashed back to that moment in the middle of the night at the Westin Galleria, when I knew EXACTLY what to do to take care of myself and how to get it done, when I was so completely sure of my actions that I never would have dreamed of calling it confidence. I mean, what other way would it ever be?

Lots of other ways, it turns out. Somehow for all my ruminations on the importance of “getting out of your comfort zone,” I never realized that I might be actively uncomfortable and uncertain, for much of the time I was traveling. Stupid and strange of me. Stranger still, that I don’t want it to end.

Corn on the Corniche (Thursday, June 24)

2010-07-07T08:39:00.001-07:00

I mean, everybody likes corn, right?

The Corniche, Beirut, Lebanon

22 things learned in Jordan (Monday, June 21)

2010-07-07T08:36:00.000-07:00

1) Gabe tends to be completely in the moment when in the face of ruins or natural wonders. Amy tends to use the time to reflect on her personal past.

2) No baksheesh!

3) Turkish coffee, medium sweet. Good.

4) Nescafe prepared instant sweetened coffee. Good.

5) Lonely Planet guidebook. Decent, but prices are woefully outdated.

6) Wadi Rum and Petra are all they are cracked up to be.

7) The more you go to a restaurant, the cheaper it gets. Example: When we first went to our neighborhood hummus restaurant in Amman, it cost 5 JD for hummus, fuul, and falafel. By the end of the week, it cost 2 JD.

8) The frame of reference for Gabriel’s name is the Koran (Ah, Jabril! You Muslim?) or futbol (Ah, Gabriel! Batistuta?)

9) Watch out for evangelists at the top of Mt. Nebo.

10) Eurovision Song Contest. Nuff said.

11) Our ceiling for hummus and falafel is once a day.

12) Breaking one of the cardinal rules of third-world travel (eating unpeeled whole fruits and veggies) only occasionally gets you sick.

13) Everyone in Madaba, the Christian capitol of Jordan, has “The Forbidden Dance” as their ringtone. No joke.

14) Shower in the midafternoon or during the second half of important soccer games for the hottest water and best pressure.

15) Speaking to a woman wearing a full face veil means you are always staring directly into her eyes, which can be unsettling.

16) Do not, if you are a woman, sit in the front seat of a taxi. Bad, inappropriate questions and touching will happen.

17) Even when your clothes are clean, they are never really clean.

18) When in a room with three Muslim men, the likelihood that their names are Mohammed, Ibrahim, and Ali, are high.

19) Plumbing can be held together with Band-Aids and soda cans.

20) Tons of Filipino women work in Jordan as retail workers, housekeepers, and hotel staff. They are literally shipped in in huge groups. If you’re in the airport for a few hours you’re likely to see at least three different groups.

21) Everyone thinks Amy is Filipino.

22) Looking at a map in Amman is useless unless you already know exactly where you are, because every street corner is an intersection between King Hussein Street and Prince Ali Street.

23) Gulf Arabs are into Starbucks pastries and Tazo tea.

24) The power outlets in the Queen Alia airport in Amman are British. The power outlets in the rest of the country are European. This is strange.

25) “Arabic” flavored ice cream at Freeze Creamery is the idealized version of every traditional Arabic sweet created. Worth a return trip to Jordan. For serious.

World Cups, remembered

2010-06-19T12:54:00.000-07:00

2002, South Korea and Japan
Yanik and I find ourselves drunk at a pub in the East Village at 7:45am. Game ends, we wobble to the deli on Broadway between 9th and 10th and get egg-ham-and-cheese on rolls and Cokes, diet for me, regular for Yans. We then go into my office at 770, and drunkenly and loudly eat hangover food in my cube smelling of pre-Bloomberg-era-ban cigarettes and beer. We think this is a good idea. I don't remember the rest of the workday. Korea makes it to the semi-finals, places fourth.

2006, Germany
Gabe and I have just started dating. We wander South Williamsburg for a place with both TV and brunch. Impossible. We stop in at Marlow & Sons, which has paninis, but no eggs, and a long-lost friend from New Trier who I haven't seen in almost 10 years is working behind the bar, which is really nice but sufficient enough to freak me out. We end up at Pies & Thighs, where the staff is stoned and forgets to place our order, which leads to us missing the first half of whatever game we wanted to watch. They make it up for us by giving us free pie, and we catch the second half in my dim apartment in 285 Division, gobbling an apple crumble that has the distinctly addictive quality of heroin. Korea doesn't make it out of their group, which includes Switzerland, France and Togo.

2010, South Africa
Gabe and I are married (and Yanik about to be!). We miss the opening ceremony and Korea's first dominating win over Greece while driving up the Kings Highway in Jordan. We watch the US draw with England caffeinated and sheesha-ed rather than drunk. We find ourselves in innumerable strange, men-filled cafes of Arabs wearing Villa, Messi and Rooney jerseys. We watch the DPRK stand up to Brazil in our crowded hostel lobby with a bunch of other backpackers, and I am confused with a million feelings of pride and bitterness and hope. We watch Korea score its one goal against Argentina in an open-air cafe on Rainbow Street, sipping orange juice and mint lemonade. I jump up and down screaming, give Gabe a loud, obnoxious high five. After an amused silence at the crazy Asian lady, a roomful of Jordanian men clearly rooting for the South Americans laughs warmly and gives a huge round of applause. The waiter makes a motion as if I should take a bow. I almost do. The Koreas play on.

This land is my land, this land is your land ... (Monday, June 14)

2010-06-19T12:29:00.000-07:00

Bethany Beyond the Jordan, where John the Baptist did his baptizing thing with Jesus, is an important pilgrimage spot and tourist attraction. Of course, it's also in a militarized zone, which, you know, makes things weird.

With tourists on the viewing platform on the Jordanian side of the River Jordan, where we were escorted by a licensed guide and met a nice young Jordanian soldier with a giant rifle:

The tourists on the Israeli side of the River Jordan, accompanied by a nice young IDF soldier with a giant rifle:

And the 10 feet of hotly contested, politically charged water that runs beneath them:

... I saw above me, an endless skyway ...

Head on a silver platter, please (Monday, June 14)

2010-06-19T12:23:00.001-07:00

Gabe, freshly shaven, evokes the sultry moves of Salome on the mountaintop where she once danced for the head of John the Baptist. He's got moves, eh? No great Biblical figure, however, was murdered this week.

Mukawir Fortress, Mukawir, Jordan

Dana and a Beard (Saturday, June 11)

2010-06-19T12:16:00.000-07:00

The Dana Nature Reserve is stunning.

So is my husband.

Ps, this is what happens when a man chooses to shave off six weeks of facial hair in stages.

Toilets get boo-boos too (Friday, June 11)

2010-06-19T12:12:00.000-07:00

Valentine Inn, Wadi Musa, Jordan.

Petra, to scale (Thursday, June 10)

2010-06-19T11:55:00.000-07:00

Reminders, always reminders, of how small we are. Welcome to Petra.

Me, entering the siq.

Gabe, hiking over the Royal Tombs.

Me, entering goat traffic.

Gabe, at the monastery.

Wadi Rum, Canadians and the hottest Jeep ever (Tuesday, June 8)

2010-06-18T08:43:00.000-07:00

After crossing from Egypt to Jordan on the ferry from Nuweiba, we made our way to Wadi Rum, a pristine nature reserve in the southwestern Jordan. This is the land of Lawrence of Arabia, home to his 7 Pillars of Wisdom, where he (supposedly) rallied the disparate Arab tribes in the beginning of the 20th century in the Arab Revolt. Wadi Rum has thrilled me ever since I saw Sean's pictures of the place in 2004 or some other such forever time ago, so I was pumped.

We got a rude awakening at Bait Ali, our luxury campsite just outside the reserve. We had been super excited to indulge in a night at a fancy camp, for the outrageous price of 30 JD a night (about $42, or TWICE what we normally pay). But! The price was 30 JD PER PERSON. Uh, $84 to camp! Wha?!

Aaaaand, then we got over it. We were in fucking Wadi Rum. And then we got over it even more, because we met the sweetest of brothers, Arun and Anup, traveling through the Middle East for a few weeks. We cajole them into sharing a 4WD trek with us in the morning, and after a few terrifyingly close encounters with a giant white spider with a red head, we go to bed.

In the morning, we lay eyes, for the first time, on our trusted steed. Please note the pop can sealing the gas tank.

And, we're off!

At Lawrence's castle. Basically his Hamptons house. I look little.

Choi sees sand dune. See Choi jump. See Arun laugh.

All over the desert are interesting Nabatean inscriptions and carvings of camel caravans and other such images of daily life. Near such inscriptions? Odd rock enclaves that are just the right size for two Canadians.

All of this was cool. The highlight of the trip, however, was definitely clambering up the giant, smooth stones that lead to a stunning rock bridge. Going up the rocks? Not so bad. Walking across the bridge? Not cool, guys, not cool.

Gabe, because he is crazy, decided to go higher up. On the recommendation of a barefoot Bedouin guide, he strips off his shoes and proceeds to make me very nervous. I employed the tactic learned on the Kalalau, and just stop looking at him.

But like it always is, the terror was worth it. We'll miss you, boys! And, of course, Canada, our home and native land! Til next time.

35 things learned in Egypt (Sunday, June 6)

2010-06-17T13:38:00.000-07:00

1) Egyptians can be exhausting.

2) Egyptians can be kind.

3) Did we mention, Egyptians can be exhausting?

4) In order to enter Saudi Arabia, women must be accompanied by a male relative.

5) Egyptian women can, and do, swim in the beaches fully dressed in long denim skirts and hijabs.

6) Bedouins smoke a LOT of hashish.

7) Everybody on the Sinai smokes weed and hashish.

8) Honey sheesha is strong and delicious. Peach and apple sheeshas are nice, but really, mango is where it’s at.

9) Southern Egypt is HOT.

10) One can feel like they are falling off a cliff when snorkeling near a steep reef drop off.

11) The Sphinx is small.

12) The Great Pyramids are big, but not as big as you expect.

13) Tombs smell like pee. All of them. Partially because of ammonia, fungus, and old, humid air collecting, but partially because people pee in them all the time.

14) You can develop Pavlovian reactions to words. For example: baksheesh = slap upside the head.

15) Luxor is better at night.

16) The Nile is better at night.

17) Just because you wash your hands like a crazy person does not mean that anybody else will. Exercise caution.

18) Four layers of antibacterial gel on your hands feels just like dirt. Whether or not it is antibacterialized dirt has yet to be determined.

19) Egyptians are extremely bitter about losing to Algeria in the run-up to the World Cup.

20) Showering in salt water means you never get a lather on anything.

21) Everything is negotiable.

22) For proper falafel and hummus, you really need to head out of Africa and into the Middle East.

23) One can eat fuul at the horrifically filthy restaurant across the street from the ferry terminal in Nuweiba and NOT get sick. This remains one of the biggest surprises of our travel.

24) 20-hour bus rides are long. Like, really, really long. And Gabe may argue with you that they are not *that* long, but they are really, really long.

25) The last 3 hours of a 20-hour bus ride are the worst, and even Gabe will agree to that.

26) Good guy-bad guy works well when bartering.

27) 5-year-old children can hustle. Don’t trust the kids in Egypt, they’ll work you for every pound you’ve got.

28) Arabian horses really are the most stunning animals in the universe.

29) Being the only woman in streets full of men NEVER gets easier.

30) Egypt is the “Hollywood” of the Middle East and exports tons of films and other media, including its language. So Jordanians, for example, can understand the Egyptian Arabic dialect, but not vice versa.

31) Pearly white tourists will never cease to amaze in their inability to properly prepare for the sun.

32) Pearly white tourists are often fat Americans.

33) The McDonald’s in Luxor, across the street from the Temple of Luxor, is a wonderful place to spend a deliciously air-conditioned, wi-fi-ed afternoon. NO JOKE.

34) The sleeper train from Cairo to Aswan is a treat.

35) Politeness does nothing when shooing away touts.

Forever Dahab (Saturday, June 5)

2010-06-17T13:21:00.000-07:00

Dahab is the antidote to everything in Egypt. Breeze-rustled date palms. Sun-bleached cushions stacked on worn rugs. Kittens rushing for your grilled calamari. Vertigo as you snorkel over a reef that plunges into the ocean floor. Yoga in the half shade, half sun of a baking roof deck. Giant platters of rice and chicken shared with friends. Meeting Bedouins for sage-sprinkled tea. And sheesha, always sheesha, in mango, peach, apple, honey.

Thanks to Beth and Kareem for the lazy days ... til next time, kids. Love.

Being Korean, crying on Mt. Sinai (Wednesday, June 2)

2010-06-13T00:08:00.000-07:00

The hike up Mt. Sinai, where Moses received the 10 Commandments from God, was pleasant enough. We left Dahab at 11pm to reach the base of the mountain at 1am, and hiked up the switchbacks of the Camel Path for a few hours. The Camel Path is literally a parking lot of camels. In the wee hours of the morning, people were hustling camel rides every few turns, which is like everywhere else in Egypt, the one difference being it’s tough to pass a camel on a mountain path when there is only six feet or so of real estate. (There is another route up, some 3,000 stairs that were built into the side of the mountain by a monk who wanted to do penance.) From Elijah’s Basin, where the Prophet Elijah heard the voice of God, everybody climbs about 800 stone stairs to the top.

The night hike ensured that we, with at least a hundred others, would be at the peak of Mt. Sinai for sunrise. Most people seemed more or like less me and Gabe – shivering, snacking, waiting for the sun with digital cameras on the ready. Nothing about the performance gear or almonds suggested pilgrim.

The sun rose. It was beautiful.

The orange glow of the first morning revealed more of our neighbors on the mountaintop, including a group of about two dozen Koreans. They looked ridiculous in that way that only Asian tourists can look ridiculous – gloves to protect their skin from the sun, a 3:1 ratio of camera to person, and what we have come to call the “beekeeper” look, a wide-brimmed hat swathed in a scarf or netting for maximum sun shield. We giggled.

And then they began to pray.

I was immediately mocking. Call it too many years of feeling left out of the Korean church community, skepticism about the hypocritical and ungenerous behavior of many Koreans in the name of Christ, or just my generally confused and overwrought response to faith. I know it’s unfair. I am working on it.

Against my will, I caught a few snatches of the words, spoken by a young man with a melodic (well, as melodic as Korean gets) voice, with a timbre of what I can only describe as devotion. Something about being thankful for even the hardest burdens, for remembering to find goodness in sacrifice.

And then they began to sing.

God help me, I hate the sound of traditional Korean singing, the high-pitched warbling and thin voices remembering some tragedy, always a tragedy. As a few people around me began to snicker, I was struck by a gut dislike for the sound, mixed with embarrassment that these Koreans were making a scene and so much noise in front of all of these white people, mixed with an overwhelming longing to be a part of their community, to feel what they felt and to believe what they believed, mixed with an intense physical realization that I stood a world apart. It is a familiar sensation.

Somehow, though, the mountains of the Sinai interior deepened the voices, which began echoing out into the pink and orange valley, warming to the newly woken sun. The other tourists, who had been chattering and preparing for the hike down, fell quiet, and with each verse, reverence started to fill the air, thicken it somehow, blanket us. I could hardly understand the hymn, and of course nobody else on the mountain could either, but it didn’t matter. Everything was rich and simple and believable, and something burst in my chest and I found myself stunned, tears streaming down my cheeks. I felt vulnerable to the core, my grimy fist not-so-subtly wiping at tears that would not stop, yet weirdly perfect, too.

The Koreans finished singing, and after a hushed beat, Sinai seemed to exhale. People packed their bags, rejoined their groups, tightened their shoelaces. The Koreans started another, more reflective prayer, and Gabe and I timidly walked around them to start our descent. The valley turned red and brown as sun grew more aggressive overhead. The braying of camels was vaguely in the distance, the grating crunch of sand and pebbles immediately underfoot.

The moment moved, and I did, too. But to where, I don’t know.

Getting busted by Egyptian security (Sunday, May 30)

2010-06-12T23:55:00.000-07:00

So, all around the Valley of Kings are signs that say, “No Camera.” The ones that don’t say “No Camera” say something like, “No Photos.” At the entry to the site, there is a security guard that rifles through your bag and tells you to leave your cameras on the bus.

Basically, you’re not supposed to take pictures.

Gabe, Paul (our Australian adoptee) get to the Valley at 6:15 a.m. - an early start is crucial in order to try to beat the 120-degree heat in the Nile Valley - and pay an atrocious entrance fee, which buys us entry into 3 tombs. We get pumped. We hike to the furthest tomb in the Valley, Tutmosis III. It is cool.

We try to get into our 2nd tomb. It is closed. We try our 3rd. It requires an additional ticket of additional atrocious amounts of pounds. We head to our 4th choice. It is closed.

It is hot.

We get to our 5th choice tomb, which is basically one of the last few that is open and free with our original ticket, and I am pissy. We walk past a sign that says “No photos.”

We get inside. Halfway through the smelly, humid mess of a hundred tourists crammed into one tomb, I surreptitiously (I think) pull out my little Canon and take a picture here, a picture there. No flash. I understand that lights can damage ancient wall paintings. I am maaaaaaaad, but not so mad that I am about to ruin antiquity. We take a few minutes, turn around, start making our way out. All of a sudden, a hullabaloo.

“Angry” Egyptian security guard grabs my arm and starts shouting at me in Arabic (I say “angry” because of course, this is all an act). “No photo! No photo!” He grabs my hand, then my camera, and starts gesticulating, a hot pink Digital Elph in his hand. “No photo!”

I feign ignorance. “So sorry!” Gabe, by this point, has noticed that I have made a scene, and comes over. Immediately, the guard starts directing all comments and hot pink gesticulating to him. It is obvious the guard considers him responsible for his wife’s misbehavior. For the rest of the time, the security guard doesn’t speak or look at me.

So, the guard tells us – uh, tells Gabe – that we have to go to the director of security because I have broken the cardinal rule of visiting ancient smelly tombs with thousands of fat smelly tourists. He starts walking purposefully to the entrance of the tomb, which is a ways away. At each turn and new room (we happen to be in a very long, railroad-apartment like tomb) the guard slows his pace and sort of slyly looks at Gabe.

The man wants a bribe, and it makes me so angry I want to shout out that he can shove that hot pink piece of metal up his dishdasha all I care, I am tired of his tombs and tired of extra hidden costs of things and tired of Egyptians trying to hustle me for money and tired of the smell of old pee in my face all the time (note: long, hot, expensive, hassle-full days in Egypt make me cranky). Of course, he doesn’t expect me to make a bribe. He wants Gabe to offer to pay him money for his misbehaving wife, because obviously Gabe must be humiliated that I did something as stupid as take a picture.

Of course, I do no such thing, and Gabe doesn’t either. He stood and waited patiently as the guard lingered, not very subtly, at the entrance to the tomb, our last chance to bribe him before going to the head of security. We wait him out. As Gabe points out, bribing one person then opens us up to bribing people at every turn, while going through the beauracratic channels at least puts us in the right. Reluctantly, the security guard walks on. Eventually, Gabe and I find ourselves in the director of security’s air-conditioned office. He’s a young dude with perfect English and a raft of people bringing him tea – but more on that later.

He takes my hot pink camera and, without ever looking at me, tells Gabe that there are no cameras allowed in the Valley of Kings.

No fucking duh.

He flips through the camera, asking Gabe to watch. They count 7 illicit pictures. Security director tells Gabe he needs to pay a fee of 50 pounds per picture - $70 USD for stupid blurry pictures of a smelly tomb that we weren’t even excited to see in the first place. We need to buy 350 Egyptian pounds worth of tickets in order to get the camera back, and delete the pictures. There is a looooong pause – security director waiting for us to counter offer and pay cash to him instead. Gabe gets up and walks out to go to the ticket booth, while I continue to sit in the office.

Suddenly, traffic in the director’s office gets crazy. Every two seconds is another man stepping in with a “Salaam aleykam,” another offer of tea, another cigarette, another long unabashed stare at the Asian woman with uncovered hair sitting like a kid in the principal’s office. In the 20 minutes that it takes Gabe to buy the tickets, at least 12 men come in and out of the office to stare, and not one of them breathes a word to me. Neither does the director, who fondles the camera and flips through the pictures, the vast majority of which are from other sights.

Gabe finally comes back, hands over the tickets, and with the director watching over his shoulder, deletes the pics. They shake hands. We leave. Not ONCE in the whole process does the director even look at me.

We finally get out of the Valley having seen only one tomb that we were really interested in, out 350 pounds and hugely apologetic to Paul, who waited patiently in the 100-degree heat through the whole debacle. After my stint as the greatest attraction of the Valley, I am feeling excessively unapologetic for taking my non-flash pictures and wishing I had demanded baksheesh out of every man who had come into the office to ogle me.

Lesson learned: Broken rules are not a big deal if you are willing to bribe your way out of them, and you will defy all of the authority figures if you don’t.

PS. Paul is awesome for not making me feel like an ass that day. I know I was an ass. Hearts, Paul!

PPS. This is a really long post with no pictures. You know why? Because I have no photos of the goddamned Valley of Kings.

Paul, our Arabic teacher

2010-06-09T09:25:00.000-07:00

Sweet Paul! He made us an Arabic dictionary. He was patient when I got busted by the Egyptian po-lice. He helped wave off unwelcome hustlers. We love Paul. See you in Syria/Sydney/Amman, my love!

So, Luxor, Egypt is different than Luxor, Las Vegas (Saturday, May 29)

2010-06-09T09:19:00.000-07:00

Sunset on the Nile, view from a felucca (Saturday, May 29)

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Gabriel wanders through the Temple of Karnak (Saturday, May 29)

2010-06-09T08:55:00.000-07:00

Sleeping. On train (Friday, May 28)

2010-06-09T08:32:00.000-07:00

The most comfortable beds we’ve slept on in weeks. We know we’re in the right place when a hundred Chinese in a giant tour group get herded onto the same train down south to Luxor and Aswan. And! We adopt an orphan – Paul, an Australian studying Arabic at the university in Amman during his summer break. The air conditioning is so good that we’re actually COLD.

Amazeballs.

Violence, second hand

2010-06-09T08:20:00.000-07:00

Egypt is a conservative country, though much more moderate than many of its neighbors. Culturally it is predominantly Islamic. Its economy is propped up by tourism, media, and a lot of foreign investment (helloooooo tax dollars!). Technically it is a secular state. We counted less than 10 women in two weeks that did not cover their head, and many more women in full burkas, gloves and veils than we did in Tunisia. Women travel and study, though the streets primarily remain a world of men. Men drinking tea and taking sheesha, men holding hands and laughing, men serving food, men staring. Though we felt seriously harassed everywhere we went, we never felt a threat of violence (unlike, say, in Colombia).

So, it stunned us when Jalal, a Lebanese-American backpacker we met at a hostel, described seeing a woman getting beaten by a man in the streets of downtown Cairo. The guy had her by the hair and was hitting her in the face. I asked Jalal if he did anything, and he said no, he walked away. He said, I don’t know what the situation is. Maybe she got caught stealing something. Maybe he was her husband. It was horrible and shocking, but what could he do?

Gabe said something similar. We don’t know what the situation is, and we’re not exactly in friendly terrain. I mean, for all we know, we’re as likely that we’d get in as much trouble – violent or legal or otherwise – for stopping a such an incident as for participating in one. Sure, if we saw that happen in the States, we could do something to stop it. But what can one person do, especially here, where we don’t know the language, don’t know the culture, where even being American makes us suspicious to locals?

My response: We fucking stop the beating! We do what we can! Who cares if it’s built into the culture? Then the culture has to change! If a man is beating a woman, you stop it somehow. You find a way. It is wrong, wrong, wrong.

And then: My God. I am that disgusting American with my disgusting assumption of moral authority and thinking that our right is the only right and maybe we don’t know the whole story and who are we to think we can, or should, change whole societies? Who are we to say anything? How dare I think our moral compass is what is right for the world?

But then: Who CARES? A woman was being hit on the street! Who cares if that woman was stealing? Who cares if that man is her husband, or father, or uncle, or brother? The reasoning that “not knowing the whole story” excuses not stopping a violent act implies that there is “some story” that somehow makes beating another human being on the street okay. And why does that make it more or less okay? How can that possibly be okay? What makes it right for anybody, anywhere, to beat someone else in public? Or in private? WHAT IS WRONG WITH US?

But then: It’s up to people themselves to right the wrongs they see in their society – if they view them as wrongs. Not us. I mean, changing hearts and minds – what the fuck, right? It doesn’t work. You can’t parachute in and make a difference. The only sea changes that have ever worked are those that have been engineered at the grassroots level. People who decide to make a change themselves.

But THEN: How can we expect someone who has grown and lived in a culture to stick their neck out if we can’t? If someone from the outside doesn’t have the courage to say something, to take a risk, to stop the beating of a woman on the street – how can we expect an insider to do so?

The whole thing is uncomfortable and impossible and exhausting and just generally fucking tragic. And all inspired by an incident that we didn’t even see ourselves. As far as soul-searching experiences goes, this lands on the massive end of the scale – and it was only a casual anecdote shared by a fellow backpacker. Life changing moments, at every turn.

Language un-barrier

2010-06-09T07:09:00.000-07:00

It goes without saying that Egypt attracts tourists from around the world, who drive the country’s economy. We were expecting tons of tour groups and lots of people living up to their appropriate ridiculous stereotypes. (Ever seen a tour guide frantically waving a Hello Kitty stuffed cat to get the attention of his wards?) But we weren’t expecting the facility of the Egyptian tour guides - at least outside of what we have started to think of as the European “tourist” languages of French, Italian, and German.

Egyptians in the museum cracking jokes in Japanese. Talking about the sacerdotes and amores about hieroglyphics in Spanish. Rounding up dozens of Chinese, shouting to other tour guides and chatting over shared cigarettes in Mandarin.

And, of course, English, English, English everywhere. My voice is my passport. Verify me.

Late afternoon, Islamic Cairo (Friday, May 28)

2010-06-09T07:06:00.000-07:00

Cairo. It's got pyramids (Thursday, May 27)

2010-06-09T06:34:00.000-07:00

They are grand, they are awesome, they are crawling with tourists. They - we - ruin everything. Seriously. The breath and sweat and dirty hands of tourists create a fungus inside many of the tombs and pyramids that erode the stone and muddy the carvings and paintings. And still, these structures are awesome. Gabe and I agree – once he builds me a Taj Mahal, I’ll get started on his Great Pyramid.

The step pyramid – one of the red, white, and black pyramids – was basically a practice round. It is the world's EARLIEST stone structure. Unbelievable.

The Red Pyramid. It rises up out of the middle of nowhere, part of a collection of pyramids in Dahshur that includes the Bent and the Black Pyramid. The oldest true pyramid.

We climbed up the side of the pyramid, to then crawl down an equally steep tunnel into the pyramid, which is damp and smells like old, wet bathroom. It is claustrophobic and scary and totally worth it.

Giza and the Sphinx. How to explain? The Great Pyramids are enormous, gorgeous pieces of antiquity, overlooking the smog of a giant African city. The tourist police expect baksheesh, or tips, for just standing around in uniform. The kids with camels expect baksheesh if you say no to a ride. The locals standing around the entrances and in key spots around the pyramids expect baksheesh for “letting” you access (after you’ve paid atrocious official entrance fees). It’s gross. And still, amazing.

Cairo clusterfuck (Wednesday, May 26)

2010-06-09T06:31:00.000-07:00

3:45 a.m. There are 30 guys clamoring outside of the airport in Cairo. We get overwhelmed, walk back inside. The tourist police say expect to pay 90 Egyptian pounds for a ride downtown (about 16 USD). We walk back outside. Immediately a dude offers us a ride for 60. Gabe says 50. We agree on 55. He walks us to a waiting cabbie, who yells at him, making the motion of emptying his pockets. Then they make up and kiss, each cheek in turn. We go to the hotel. The cabbie asks the front desk for a commission for bringing us to the airport. Hotel dude says no. Cabbie shrugs, leaves.

Welcome to Egypt.

32 things learned in Tunis

2010-05-25T09:59:00.000-07:00

In no particular order:

1) When a clean, empty bathroom presents itself, use it. Shower. Brush your teeth. Pee. Whatever you can do. You don't know when you'll get another one.

2) Watch your head. Amy was watching her step while walking in Sousse, and came within an inch of colliding with a freshly decapitated cow's head hanging outside of a butcher shop. Really.

3) Butchers hang freshly decapitated cow and sheep heads outside of their shops on the sidewalk (See #2).

4) You never know when you will strike up a conversation with a world famous rally car driver, who then gives you his address and invites you to his home in France.

5) Flies can indeed land on your lips when you are napping in a windy louage.

6) Berber ladies carry cell phones and teensy little change purses folded into their many winding layers of clothing.

7) Berber ladies in red = married.

8) If you can speak Spanish, and the person you're trying to talk to can speak French AND Italian, you can basically have a normal conversation.

9) When Tunisians play the ethnic guessing game, Korea comes late, or never, on a list that starts with Chinois, Japon, Hong Kong, Philipinnes, Tokyo, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. And yes, Tokyo is considered a country.

10) Sometimes Tunisians think things are funny that are not. Like saying "heil hitler" to someone who they think is Italian (still haven't figured that one out). Or laughing, joking, and making charades as if they are pumping a rifle and shooting at you. Or pretending they have a bomb on a bus. Or saying Amy must be related to Bruce Lee. (Okay, maybe that actually is funny.)

11) Sahara hot.

12) Sahara windy.

13) Sandstorms hardcore.

14) Gas cheap.

15) One CAN get tired of warm, crusty baguettes.

16) Nothing can redeem a man wearing capris.

17) Being disconnected from the Internet is more challenging than expected.

18) Gabe is good at drawing street maps, but dislikes writing street names.

19) Chewing with your mouth wide open and picking your nose are acceptable public activities in Tunisia.

20) Old French and German men really like riding their motorcycles around Africa.

21) It really would have been smart to have learned some French before coming to Africa.

22) French people really do say "puton" when they swear.

23) Do yourself a favor and poop in the public WCs in your hotel, instead of your poorly plumbed, poorly ventilated private toilette.

24) Bathing with antibacterial wipes actually feels pretty good.

25) Tunisian coffee is DELICIOUS.

26) YAB brand banana yogurt is to die for.

27) A 2-meter Berber headscarf is absolutely the most useful piece of performance gear in the world. Thousands of years of field testing behind that shit. Keeps out the heat, keeps out the cold, keeps out the sun, keeps out the wet, keeps out the sand, can be used as towel, blanket, napkin, belt, sarong, tablecloth, pillowcase, etc.

28) After a week in the Sahara, a 2-meter Berber headscarf can smell really bad.

29) When riding louages, you should always position yourself to be in command of the windows.

30) Camels are giant, smelly beasts, but babies in the wild are shockingly cute.

31) Medina hostels, while cheap, are not an acceptable housing option.

32) Just because something is listed on a menu doesn't mean that the restaurant will serve you that food or has it that night. It is more accurate to say that if an item is listed on a menu, the restaurant at some point in its lifetime served that food to a guest.

Ephemera (Sunday, May 23)

2010-05-25T09:28:00.001-07:00

We spent our rainy Sunday roaming around Carthage, once the playground of Dido and Aeneas, today a tony suburb 30 minutes outside of Tunis. It takes some work to imagine what the city must have been like 2,000 years ago, but there was something about the ruins of the Antonine Baths, an ancient Roman bath house along the sea, that stunned both of us.

Weird. I mean, we've both put a lot of care into trying to get out of New York, wean ourselves from the rat race and do some soul searching. For us, at least, that's a lot of what traveling is - actively seeking perspective in the vistas of foreign and alien places and cultures, maybe better finding our own way in the world, how we might shape it and have an impact. But there was something ... something just completely tragic and beautiful about the ruins in the gray, misty cold, knowing that overpriced cafes and taxis were just a few blocks away, that a measly few dinar could get us access, to crawl over this dead grandeur. Time was just so tragically obvious and sad. The Romans thought they were building an empire to last forever. And yet here we are.

Whites and blues (Wednesday, May 19)

2010-05-25T09:22:00.001-07:00

We have found our way back to Tunis, and aren't really doing a damn thing. It's marvelous. But today we went to Sidi Bou Said, lovely little tourist trap about 30 minutes outside of the city. Much of the town is plastered with shops and offensively expensive cafes catering to the busloads of group tourists, but if you can escape the main drag, the town opens up into wonderful residential neighborhoods with beautiful vistas of the Mediterranean and the Gulf of Tunis. The blues and whites of the homes and the bright purples and oranges of the flowers were said inspire Paul Klee, and it's easy to see why.

Everywhere sand (Saturday, May 15)

2010-05-25T09:21:00.000-07:00

The sirocco came through Douz. It is a blizzard of sand. It's in our eyeballs, in our ears, up our nostrils, everywhere. Gabe flossed sand out of his teeth. We wanted to take a video, but would have ruined our camera, which already has sand in all of its crevices, despite our keeping everything in Ziplocs. We are breathing sand, and even our Berber wraps aren't providing much comfort.

So much sand.

The Grand Erg Oriental (Friday, May 14)

2010-05-25T09:11:00.000-07:00

Mohammed, our 4WD driver in the desert, drove us from Ksar Ghilane back to Douz straight through the shifting dunes of the Grand Erg. This was the heart of our Sahara trip - to swim through the dunes and hope that our Toyota truck would survive. Every so often, Mohammed would stop the truck, get out to climb the nearest high dune, and survey the sand. We have absolutely no idea what he saw, and as he spoke "only" French, Arabic and Berber, we couldn't ask. All we know is that he is brilliant, warm, and certainly we would have died without him driving us.

Nothing but windy, undulating waves of orange and gold. But words don't do the Grand Erg justice, so I leave it to the images. Video to follow soon ... damn the ban on YouTube!

The Sahara. For real. (Thursday, May 13)

2010-05-25T08:59:00.000-07:00

You know how they say that the Grand Canyon is one of the few sights in the world that completely lives up to the hype? For me, the hype has always been about the desert, particularly the Sahara. I've always had a lot of romance wrapped up in my head about the Sahara. Something about the motion, the desolation, the absolute need for survival under a black sky. Even the word is exotic and gorgeous, to be breathed through. There is something terrifyingand darkly sexy about the idea of the empty desert, and I was totally ready to be disappointed.

But I wasn't. There wasn't anything about the Sahara that wasn't overwhelmingly beautiful, frightening, and vast, and that didn't, in an absolute and complete way, remind me that I am just a tiny little actor in a terribly gorgeous world.

Our Sahara was shaped by Ksar Ghilane, an oasis roughly 200 kilometers south of Douz, a tourist town that is the primary launching point for camel and 4WD Sahara treks (No camel trek for us - too dangerous in the summer). Ksar Ghilane is the largest oasis in the Sahara, and it is shaped around "the source," a small, muddy natural spring surrounded by palm trees and a few Berber campgrounds. Rappy had fun.

We spent the afternoon practing our headwraps with the young Berbers who live on the oasis. They are quick to offer opinions on your headwrap, and as a general rule, aren't fans of the Arab styles of draping. Too much conquering, perhaps.

The headwraps, made out of 2-meter long soft fabric, are used for everything from towels and belts to sun protection and rain protection and most of all, sand protection. (Not that it matters. The sand gets into everything. EVERYTHING.)

Once the sun went down and it was cool enough, we set out to explore the Grand Erg Oriental, which is literally a sand ocean lapping at the oasis. The sirocco, a summer wind that carries sand, was starting to act up, so we were fully wrapped and half blind, but we couldn't resist running through the dunes.

Sunset in the Sahara. I am small, and lucky.

Clean is a relative term (Thursday, May 13)

2010-05-25T08:52:00.000-07:00

So, I "showered" last night in our little Berber cave. I used a combination of Oil of Olay Express Daily Facial Cleansing Cloths and Fresh Scent Wet Ones Antibacterial Hands & Face Wipes.

Just a few days ago, I washed Gabe's shirts in our medina hostel in Sousse, the call to prayer over the loudspeakers and the smells of fish, urine, and roasting pralines drifting up to our second-floor window. In the absence of a bowl (I used to use the cooking pots in our apartment in Bogota) I used a 2-gallon Ziploc bag and the detergent we carry around with us in a resealable plastic bag to soak the clothes.

Things change, non?

I love my husband a lot (Wednesday May 12)

2010-05-25T08:43:00.003-07:00

So, if one is a supernerd Star Wars fan, one might know that George Lucas filmed much of the Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back footage in Tunisia. One might also know that Matmata, a small desert town just north of the Sahara, was the location for Tatooine, and that the fictional planet of Tatooine was named after the very real, very empty Tunisian desert town of Tataouine. One might even know that the home of Luke Skywalker, where we see him living with his aunt and uncle drinking that funny blue milk, is actually a real Berber cave home, tunneled into the ground to keep out the Saharan sun. One might EVEN want to stay in one of the cave homes that have been remodeled into hotels for Star Wars geeks, or have a drink at the hovel that was the site of Mos Eisley cantina, which still has set pieces of the bar laying around.

I am a Star Wars fan, but I am not one of THOSE people. Gabriel, however, is, and being a loving wife, I found myself, after 2 long, hot, stinky louage rides, in a Berber hovel. I am cheerful.

Anyways, it did end up being kind of fun. Also, who knew George Lucas ripped off everything? His costume designer should get no credit for any Jedi, Jawa, of Tatooine outfits, as they were all directly stolen from Berber culture. Seriously, she probably just bought out the local souk for all the extras. And he didn't dress the sets. But at any rate. The Berber caves are dark and cool, and despite the paint chipping off the cave walls and onto our faces in the middle of the night, Matmata was a not-to-be-regretted adventure.

Also, I married a geek.

The Ksour (Tuesday, May 11)

2010-05-25T08:34:00.001-07:00

On the southern edge of the central coast of Tunisia, near the Libyan border, are the ksour, the hilltop villages and fortresses of the Berber. The Berbers are an ethnic mix, devoutly Muslim and indigenous to North Africa, with a culture and language distinct from the hodgepodge of Arab, Mediterranean, Western European and African that makes up the rest of Tunisia.

Many of the ksour (plural of ksar) are in ruins. Chenini, however, is a thriving Berber village of about 700 people with a small mosque, medrassa, and primary school. The ksar was built into the mountains in steppes to protect against attack, near oases where communities farm and draw water. The stones are the same color as the mountains themselves, so it's difficult to distinguish the homes from the environment, a protective measure against attack.

The first level of a ksar is the most desirable to live in, as you dOn't need donkeys to transport water uphill to the house and can carry it by hand. In the past, Berbers had really simple, ingenious ways of protecting their grains, oil and other supplies -- they built tiny entrances to their homes, and then constructed large pots and containers twice the size of the doorways within the walls, so that nobody could steal their goods. Today, that's not quite necessary, but the dim, cool rooms are still the most effective way of keeping out sand and heat and preserving food. Running water and electricity still aren't a big thing.

At Chenini, one of the few ways for young people to make money is to give tours of the nearby ruins and homes. Our young guide, Ali, spoke 6 languages: Berber, Arabic, French, Italian, German, and English. Berber at home, Arabic at mosque and with friends, French in school, and all of the major tourist languages. Nobody was there that day but us, though, and the emptiness lent a ghostly, magical, uniquely Berber color to the desert.

A camel and a well (Sunday, May 9)

2010-05-25T08:25:00.001-07:00

After another long-ish louage ride, we found ourselves in Kairouan, the fourth holiest city in
Islam after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. It is home to the Grand Mosque, a beautiful site which is the largest mosque in all of Africa.

In the nearby medina, it also is home to a camel and a well.

The well, Bir Barouta, is hidden in the winding streets of the medina. It's a pilgrimage site for Muslims, as it is believed to be linked to the holy Zem-Zem well in Mecca. We read in the guidebook that the site was a little tacky and touristy, with a camel at the center of it. We imagined a stuffed animal camel, maybe, or some neon-lit camel perched on top of the well.

After climbing up a steep, short staircase, we found the well, and a camel. Like, a real camel. A big 7-foot camel dressed in dozens of scarves, harnessed to the wheel on the well and tended to by the well keeper. The well operates with a series of pulleys that are turned as the camel walks in a circle, bringing up cups of water that pilgrims drink and wash with while trying to keep a safe distance from the camel. Which is of course impossible, because, you know, it is a giant animal and you are standing with it in a well.

We have video of this amazing feat, but Tunisia blocks YouTube. So for now, pictures will have to suffice.

Gladiators, Mosaics, Etc. (Saturday, May 8)

2010-05-25T08:08:00.000-07:00

After our whirlwind flights to get to Africa and a day to recuperate in Tunis, we took a two-hour train to Sousse, our base of operations for a bunch of sightseeing in the area. We are staying in the medina. We are not doing that ever again (but more on that later).

Today we took a 90-minute louage (a kind of shared taxi) ride to El Jem, the largest and best-preserved Roman ampitheater outside of the Coliseum. Wild. You can see the little staging rooms where the Romans would house, say, lions, or Christians. The rows of (30,000!) seats and stairways are beautifully sculpted, and everywhere are little notches in the marble and brick where ropes or beams must have hung. The vastness is astonishing, and kindof fearsome.It doesn't take too much imagination to picture yourself in front of the screaming hordes.

Afterwards, we walked a short way to an unnamed museum, which houses the most stunning mosaics we have ever seen. The museum is in a restored Roman mansion, with a number of breezy open courtyards and a pool. While the workers and slaves of the time lived near the ampitheater, the wealthy traders of the area lived in this section in lavish homes. It is where it's at. Everybody says the Bardo Museum in Tunis has the best mosaics, but they are wrong. Get thee to El Jem.

53 little things we learned in Colombia (Wednesday, May 5)

2010-05-25T08:07:00.000-07:00

In no particular order:

1) Little pickled, salted carrots are the best chaser for aguardiente.

2) Wine is generally terrible.

3) Do not trust people.

4) Trust people.

5) A gram of pure cocaine can run you $3 USD.

6) Do not drink too much aguardiente (see #1).

7) Medellin is the plastic surgery capital of Colombia, and quickly becoming the plastic surgery capital of South America. For their quincineras, girls often get their boobs and their butts done.

8) Newly done butts can "burst" during sex. It is inadvisable to have sex soon after plastic surgery.

9) There are only 3 TV channels and 2 newspapers, all of which are owned by companies that also have extensive commercial interests. This is bad.

10) Manzana Postobon is perhaps the best soft drink ever invented.

11) Bandeja paisa is for serious.

12) Hot water is NOT overrated.

13) Yerba buena is not mala.

14) "Cogalo" means "grab him." As in, "He snatched my bag, cogalo!"

15) Do not try to buy dairy products.

16) Water is cheaper when you buy it in a bag, not a bottle.

17) Exito is a backpacker's best friend.

18) Contact solution is obscenely expensive.

19) Transmilenio is our jam.

20) Cazuela de mariscos at Casa de Socorro in Cartagena is worth every penny.

21) The Cartagena breeze is the world's gift to us.

22) The weather in Medellin is the best in the country, maybe compensating for the fact that despite its extraordinary advances, Medellin remains the capitol of all of the dark undercurrents in Colombia.

23) The Kiwis and the Germans run the best, cleanest, most efficient hostels.

24) EVERYBODY cares about soccer.

25) Andres Carne de Res is like a Disneyland of meat and decadence.

26) Aguardiente appears, and then it disappears (see #1 and #6).

27) Colombianas. This may require a separate list.

28) Don't try to get anything done between 11:30-2:30. Or after 4.

29) Fuck Bancolombia.

30) Depending where you are in Bogota, a llamada can run you 150-250 COP a minute.

31) EVERYBODY gets their nails did.

32) Parque Independencia is the parque for us.

33) Aguila!

34) We like onces, the midafternoon coffee and snack.

35) Yes, it is possible to eat cereal and mangoes for dinner for 10 weeks.

36) The Swiss have the coolest passports...

37) ... and they're not part of the European Union.

38) Gabriel can't say "huevos revueltos."

39) Squeaky white queso fresco is best eaten after soaked in a mug of hot chocolate.

40) Squeaky white queso fresco is next best eaten heated up and smothered in oozing, warm arequipe.

41) Spending every waking minute with your spouse leads to the development of some very weird habits.

42) There are good arepas and there are bad arepas.

43) Killing a chicken ... not that big of a deal.

44) Castrating a bull ... a very big deal.

45) There is a giant white bull named Toby living in southern Colombia.

46) People are not shy about staring at Asians.

47) Colombia fought in the Korean War, which was the first international conflict after Colombia was accepted into the United Nations.

48) Less than 2 percent of the country is wired for high speed Internet.

49) Sometimes a PR campaign is just PR.

50) Law & Order SVU and House can be watched at any hour of the day.

51) Gabriel can indeed get motion sickness, at least in the mountain range between Cali and Ibague. Also, puking in a dark bus toilet while winding through mountain switchbacks at an alarming speed is difficult.

52) The roadside cafe outside of the bus station in Zipiquira has perhaps the best pollo asado in all of Colombia.

53) At clubs, you can hire an "angel" to drive your car home for you. Drunk driving rates have been cut significantly. Los Angeles should do this.

Goodbye, Bogota ... and my youth (Sunday, May 2)

2010-05-24T12:48:00.000-07:00

It's impossible to describe our joy at getting to know our cousins Diana and Sergio and, of course, Diana's beautiful boyfriend, Santi. Equally impossible is describing Andres Carne de Res, a meat and drink-fueled pleasure palace an hour outside of Bogota, where we celebrated my 31st birthday. I'll let the pictures speak for me.

We miss you guys already!

Es ist 17:30 Uhr in Frankfurt ...

2010-05-04T08:30:00.000-07:00

Two flights down, one to go.

Our layover in NY went kinda like this: J express to Tribeca, screeching love from our sobrino, suspicion from our sobrina (who doesn't quite remember us), massive shopping trip at Duane Reade for DEET and contact solution, pancakes, haircuts, lunch at Bar Pitti, a recital at Enzo's preschool (note: always take the opportunity to watch 3-year-olds play on xylophones, it is fucking brilliant), laundry, bap and banchan, a sad goodbye with the sobrinos, and then back off to JFK.

Our layover in Frankfurt is going kinda like this: yawn, sleep, marvel at the gorgeousness of German airport bathrooms, try to fight to stay awake, fail.

In three more hours we board Lufthansa again for Tunisia, and hope that Thomas and Adrian, our Swiss friends from Medellin, managed to conjure up enough French to make that hostel reservation for us in Tunis. Also possible that they were tipsy and screwing with us. We shall see, won't we?

Auf Wiedersehen!

Guasimilla - The Fotos

2010-05-01T18:40:00.000-07:00

Marc, our new bestie in Bogota

2010-05-01T10:13:00.000-07:00

Love him. Hate him. Love him. Hate him. Okay, mostly love him.

Thanks for the wine, the whiskey, and the, ahem, titillating conversation. Til next time, amor.

As seen around La Candelaria

2010-04-30T09:05:00.000-07:00

For a full array of Candelaria street art ... check it.

I'm 31! Holy shit!

2010-04-27T16:40:00.001-07:00

Last year on April 27, I was driving through the San Joaquin Valley, reporting a story on how entrepreneurs in Merced County were -- maybe -- shaping themselves to be the region's economic salvation.

Today I ate fried chicken and papas criollas on Carrera Septima, and was followed around the Museo Nacional in Bogota by a bunch of schoolkids who had clearly never seen an Asian before. Two girls had the balls to come up and chat. I admire them.

2011?