a secure, undisclosed location

I now live about 1/2 mile from Dick Cheney. Not that you'd know it without doing some research. The house of the No. 2 executive is harder to get close to than his boss' house.
The grounds of the US Naval Observatory, where the Vice President residence is located, is completely fenced off and all entry points are guarded. That's not so surprising. The fact you can barely catch a glimpse of the house from the street isn't surprising. This being DC, the fact there is no sign or other acknowledgement it is theVP's residence is a bit surprising.

The real surprising thing is that you can't even see the place online. At least not with Google maps or Google Earth. Yahoo! maps still has the area in high resolution, at least last time I checked.

back in the day

Old Baylor Park-6
Originally uploaded by jmtimages.

In contrast to the previous post...

(The lowest I remember is filling up for 79.9 cents a gallon in St. Louis in college - sometime around 1998).

i'm glad I live on a bus line...

DC Gas prices
Originally uploaded by Focused.

In abstract theory terms, I don't necessarily think higher gas prices are a bad thing (although it'd be nice if there was some sort of infrastructure to allow more people to get by without using gas first).
However, it's a little bit of a shock to see prices jump 15 cents in a week. When I got here, I filled up in DC for $2.959/gallon, a price that was a few cents lower than most stations in the area. Today, I put in a few gallons at $3.099 per, a price I was happy to see - it was at least 10 cents below anything else I saw. (And I actually found that price in Maryland).

Rock Creek Park

Rock Creek Park
Originally uploaded by Mad African/Appler!.

It's also a little fun to walk out of your house onto a city park trail, and see that it's technically a National Park. Where all the neighbors are walking their dogs.

what i've learned today

When you're fat and out of shape, here's a tip if you'd like to run for more than five minutes at a time.

Start Slower.

the rest of the tour

So below you can see one shot of my street - here's a few more.
We're a few blocks off the businesses of Wisconsin Ave, and a few one-way and dead-end streets set the area off from the traffic. In the photo there's actually available parking, which isn't the case once the sun goes down. And I'm not looking forward to the headache coming up as we try to get a permanent parking pass.

The basement we're inhabiting isn't quite big enough for all our stuff - most of which has been packed up since we left the country in late '05. At the time, we thought we cut down all our possessions. Now I don't know where we'll put it all, especially since our closet is about a foot wide. I did get the important stuff worked out - the computer, TV and stereo are all hooked together after a run to Radio Shack for $25 worth of cables. So my clothes are all over the place, but I can download, watch and listen all through electronic entertainment bundle.

Our basement falls in the middle of a block of row houses, which I'm sure look nicer now than they will in November.

On the other side, where the entry/exit point to our humble basement actually leads, is the alley, and on the other side Whitehaven Park, part of Rock Creek park, which takes up most of North-central DC.

Today I made up my mind to go running for an hour in the park. I made it about 5 minutes. I was actually out moving in the park for an hour, but I only managed to run about a quarter of the time. Bad showing. Since I've got no real employment to worry about, I guess I'll have to work at that.

The neighborhood

The neighborhood
Originally uploaded by slack13.

Gotta say, this is a good time of year to get to DC. It was in the mid-80s yesterday, but no humidity yet, and stuff is flowering everywhere. Doesn't hurt we're a few blocks off a main strip but tucked away out of the traffic and our apartment back door opens onto a park.
I understand it's not always this nice - few people brag about DC's wonderful weather. But it makes for a nice introduction.

in with the new Busch

Caught a game at the new Busch Stadium yesterday, pushing the stadium total to 14 (a number that should jump rapidly soon, since I've only seen a game at one east coast stadium.

None of my Cardinal fan friends have been overly enthusiastic about the new stadium. Essentially on the exact site as the old one, the new Busch was designed with the same "retro" aestethic as every other new stadium since Camden Yards. The biggest knock against the old stadium, from a fan's perspective, was that it was a cookie-cutter round cement structure, just like the ones in Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and other cities that built stadiums in the 60s or 70s (I'll have a chance to revisit the cookie-cutter look soon, at RFK). The biggest knock on the new park is, as one of my friends puts it, it's a "new Cookie-cutter". Since the elements designed to give the park "character" are the same as every other new park out there the park actually is devoid of any character.

Valid point. But I still prefer the new park to the old one. Got to see a day game in the bleachers yesterday, even if the weather wasn't perfect. Clouds hung in the sky most of the day, and the ninth inning was broken up by a 49-minute rain delay. The temperature reading behind home plate stayed in the high 70s, though, and for a few of the mid innings the sun beat down.
I reached my seat with a $5 hot dog and $8.50 beer in hand and looked around the stadium. Granted, there isn't any unique distinguishing feature to this park. But the brick facade and iron roof supports rising above the upper deck just look nicer than the old concrete ring of arches, even if every other park uses them.
Just being shiny and new and having 11 different kinds of concession stands will wear off. In 20 years, there might be calls for a new park as this stadium style falls out of favor. But it's going to age at least as gracefully as the Old Busch, and probably a little bit better.
For my money, there are two very important reasons this stadium is better.
1. It's obviously a baseball park. By the time I saw a game at the old Busch they'd torn up the artificial turf, put a grass bank in the outfield as the hitter's backdrop (a feature kept in the new park) and set up a shrine of rememberance in a few upper deck centerfield sections, featuring the team's Championships and retired numbers. They made it look probably as nice as you could make a cookie-cutter stadium look. But that didn't change the fact it was orginally built as a multi-purpose stadium. And it didn't change the most glaring deficiency of the old Busch, which was fixed with -
2. You can see out of the new stadium. The tiers of seating decks, skyboxes and club sections wrap around the field from foul pole to foul pole, but the pile of seating decks has breaks, visual interupptions, to allow spectators some view of the surrounding city. St. Louis has one iconic view - the arch. Now you can see it from parts of the stadium. The only place you could see the arch from the old stadium was if you climbed to the top row of the upper deck and looked out. This sounds like a small thing, but to me it's important for a stadium to have some sort of geographical identity. The new stadium might now have much unique character, but neither did the old one, and at least now you can tell with a glance which city you're in.



(A last point: Busch Stadium policy allows fans to bring in their own drinks, and I believe food. But the only place this is mentioned on the Cardinals website is on an "A to Z" guide of Busch Stadium under the letter I. For inspection (of bags). Obviously not a policy they're hoping people stumble upon.)

a plan

My work on the Springfield, Mo., ice storm disaster-recovery effort is done. (At least as officially as it can be - they never really tell you when you're finished, you just go "on call." But it's in the last gasping stages, and there's almost a zero chance of more work for me).
So I'm headed up to Columbia this weekend to relive my glory days. Then back to Springfield to finalze packing effort, then next week head to DC with stops in St. Louis and Indianapolis (hopefully a game at the new Busch will be involved). Then I'll land in DC just in time to ... well, at this point I have no idea what I'll be doing in DC. Looking for work and ways to earn money. Exploring the city, and reaquainting myself with the tourist spots I saw years ago. Piling through a to-do list that has built up since I just couldn't get myself motivated at the end of 12-hour days (or even the shorter ones). Perhaps a little road trip thrown in for good measure.

a destination, anyway

Almost five months after our return to the country, we've finally moved past crashing with friends and family without an idea of where we'd finally settle.
Kirsten landed a job in Washington, D.C., and that's where we're going next. (Well, she's already there. I'm hanging onto the job here in Missouri as long as I can, then heading east as well).
I still think of myself as someone whose rightful place is on the West coast, but I just keep moving further and further away. I think I'll manage - I'm happy to be heading somewhere where the metro population can be expressed in seven digits, rather than five.

the seasons, in the wrong order

When I started working this job in Springfield - early February - a few days started in the falling snow. It jumped straight from winter to summer; the last two weeks the temps have broken 80 a few times.
This week it decided to return to spring. We've gotten 45-55 temperatures and lots of rain. The problem is, after spending a few weeks touching the 80s, this feels a lot more like fall than spring. My internal thermostat has already been spoiled.

trees

We weren't in Springfield when the ice storm hit. We didn't live without power for a week afterward. But we were more than willing to profit from the severe weather when we learned there were temporary jobs available in the clean-up process. Especially since we had no other compelling reason pulling us to any other destination, and we were planning on coming to see Kirsten's family.

The ice had hardly affected Joplin, about an hour west, but as we approached Springfield all the large trees along the highway had been damaged. Limbs were broken, creating upside-down Vs spiking the top of the canopy. Some of the trees looked as though an internal explosion had driven the branches away from the trunk. A few reminded me of nothing so much as a Bloomin' Onion.

I've become well-acquainted with the effects of ice storm damage on trees over the past two months or so. Some knowledge about the trees themselves has managed to leak unbidden into my brain, but I've learned more about the inefficiency of this particular layer of the FEMA bureaucracy.

It looks like the job is winding down. No more watching crews cut trees, or haul away the broken limbs, documenting every step. Hopefully no more waking up at 5 a.m. (or 5:45, once daylight savings kicked in) once I'm finished here.
The last few days the weather has given me a reprive - thunderstorms have halted work. The work is almost finished up anyway (only a little more than three months after the storm) so I might be done any minute. I won't be sorry when it's done, but I'm willing to earn a few more paychecks before it is.

radio

For the last month, I've been driving a car with Sirius satellite radio. It has one channel of particular interest to me: the international radio channel. Particularly the Irish and Australian broadcasts, since we listened to those channels while in rental cars in their lands of origin.

Since we've gotten back to the States, the travels have receded into the background of my mind (especially now, while working 12 hour days - everything has receded into the back of my mind as a sleep-deprived haze has blocked out most of my thoughts). Listening to foriegn radio, however, brought on a kick of nostalgia.

Also, a bit of a realization: listening to two commentators debate on Irish radio, I actually heard one concede a point to the other. When's the last time that happened on any program in the States?

baby buggies

baby buggies
Originally uploaded by slack13.

We ran into these buggies outside the shops in Rykjavik. It's interesting enough to me that they still have buggies such as this, rather than the super-decked out strollers I see here. But wait, there's more.
There were babies in these. Left outside the shop. With no supervision. In November, in Iceland.
People would go nuts here. In fact, someone told me there was a case where a European tourist was chared with child neglect by New York police for doing the exact same thing. But apparently it's considered bad form to disturb others' shopping experience by bringing a baby in the store.

It's a refreshing attitude.

tired

Obviously, I haven't kept to my goal of regular posting. At least now, I have a semi-excuse. In order to make some cash K and I picked up a short-term job in Springfield, Mo. Ice storms a few weeks ago were bad enough to earn a disaster designation from FEMA, which means FEMA is picking up the tab to clean out all the tree limbs. Of course, because it's FEMA, it's not an easy process. Which is where we come in -we're earning cash watching the crews doing the actual work, doing our part to add another layer of bureaucracy to the process. Not a bad gig, since we're not really doing any actual work other than filling out paperwork, and not bad pay. Bad hours, though. About 12 of them each day, six or seven days a week. Last week, I put in 74 hours. Even without doing hard work during the day, I don't have much time to do anything else. Certainly not enough time left over for sleeping, as far as I'm concerned.

bands around the world

Oct. 4, 2006

A poster caught our eye in the Beijing subway: Rock and Beer Feast 2006. Almost all the poster was in Chinese characters, rendering the information useless to us, but we managed to figure out there was a week-long, all-day music (and beer) festival somewhere in town while we were there. (and calling it a feast, instead of the more conventional fest, just made it more appealing).


In the English-language mags we found a bit more information, although still tantalizingly little: yes, it was a week-long series of concerts starting at about 2 p.m. each day. More importantly, the venue (listed as "International Sculpture Garden") was accessible by subway, the only way we could navigate Beijing. And the entry fee was less than $10.
Wednesday, we lounged around the apartment all morning. Since most of the day was shot already, we figured we'd head out to the feast to make it sound like we hadn't squandered all our time. In our mind, we figured we'd lie on the grass, listen to a couple of bands (since we had no idea what to expect, we went in figuring the quality would be poor. No chance of disappointment) and then maybe leave and figure out something else.


We showed up about three o'clock. The venue was easy enough to find, since it was literally just outside the subway stop. The "sculpture garden" ended up being an airport-sized piece of fenced-in concrete; not the perfect place to hang out in the 80-degree sunshine. A group of maybe 100 kids sat in front of the stage at one end of the cement, watching a punk band fronted by a high-school aged girl. A few more sat by the two beverage tents in the middle of the area, about 300-400 yards from the stage. The far edge was ringed with tents selling food and merchandise. The crowd seemed to be primarily 16-22 year olds, with enough exceptions to make it interesting. All in all, pretty typical. Except we were the only white faces there (a few more, looking like international college students, showed up later in the evening). And the beer sellers, who were using some sort of purchase-tickets-then-exchange-tickets-for-beer system, didn't speak English. And I didn't understand a word the bands were saying (actually, I suppose that is pretty typical).

A few bands into the day (each band got about a half-hour set) we were treated to our first taste of the bizarre: a goth-metal band, lead singer dressed in what I'm guessing was a traditional western Chinese costume (to my eye, it looked a bit like Native American garb) and everyone else in full white face paint. A few power rock chords, then out comes the traditional Chinese violin. Nice touch.

The bands weren't bad, generally. We figured out how to buy beer (3 yuan, or about 35 cents, for a big bottle of beer; 5 yuan for a smaller bottle of water). A girl at the refreshment tent took the opportunity to practice her English, helped us navigate our way through the selection and translated the names of some bands. She also keep asking us if we liked the music, near incredulous as well as excited at our answer of yes.

Just after dark came our favorite act of the night. It didn't hurt when they broke into a pop-punk cover of "You Are My Sunshine," one of three English-language songs the whole day. (I honestly can't remember what the first one was, but the other one was "Cat Scratch Fever" sang by a hard-rocking Chinese who, I'm convinced, didn't know English or have any idea what he was saying).

Many, many beers and about eight hours later, we even managed to negotiate the subway properly and make it home.


Nov. 8

Since even before we left New Zealand, it seemed like we were continuously visiting cities where a band one of us wanted to see had just been or was just about to arrive; either way, not while we were actually there. In London, we checked the gig guides and the sites of several bands we knew were touring. Again, all of them were going to miss us by at least a few weeks.

Kirsten checked on one more band, and found it, too, would miss us, playing in London while we would be in Newcastle. Then we looked at their schedule, decided to see where Gateshead was, and found out it actually was in Newcastle, at the same time we were going to be in Newcastle. So, finally, a happy coincidence and a show we wanted to see.

The show was in the Sage Gateshead, a brand-new venue on the south side of the Tyne River. From the outside, the steel-and-glass structure looks a bit like a giant, shiny slug. From the inside, it offers a brilliant view of downtown Newcastle as well as three concert halls.

The show itself, the only one on our trip we bought tickets for ahead of time, was a bit of a disappointment. I've heard Yo La Tengo's album tracks before, and I generally like them. Live, I felt they should have taken the distortion pedals away from the lead singer. There was more noise than music, and from a band whose lyrics are probably the strength, when you can't hear the lyrics it's a problem.


Nov. 11

It looked like we'd have our usual problem as we headed to Ireland. There was a band our friend Ryan had introduced us to. We discovered they'd be playing in Dublin the first weekend we'd be in Ireland. However, plans changed and it turned out we were in County Cavan the night of the show, rather than Dublin.

Our Irish friends told us they'd be taking us to Galway the next night, to see the reuniting show of one their brother's bands - they were opening for a touring band at a Galway pub. (Unfortunately for me, the name of their band has left my mind. Sorry, Alan.) We arrived in Galway a little late, and the band we came to see was off the stage. We decided to head in anyway, since two of us were on the guest list and the remaining cover wasn't that bad split between all of us.

We walked in the pub and saw chaos on stage. There were nearly 30 people up there, most of whom had no instruments (save kazoos) but were singing, blowing bubbles, throwing confetti and dancing like mad. I figured they'd grabbed a bunch of fans out of the audience. The crowd was into it, the music was catchy. It also sounded a little familiar.

Now, Ryan had only given us I'm From Barcelona's music. We had no idea what the band make-up was. So after a couple songs, when a very familiar song starts playing, Kirsten leaned over to me: "They're covering I'm From Barcelona!" Then we started to wonder. I leaned over to one of the Irish boys: "Who is this band?" "Barcelona something!"

We'd stumbled across the show of the band we'd meant to see, without any idea we were going to. It also ended up being one of the best shows we'd ever seen.

backpack living

I may be back in the States, but my lifestyle has hardly changed from
the globe-trottin' days. We're still looking for jobs, still don't
have any clear place to settle, still staying with friends and family.
So we're also still effectively living out of backpacks (although
more than one, since we have a car to carry our stuff around with
us). Time still seems to fly by and it seems like I'm too busy to get
anything done, even though I'm not really doing anything. Such are
the problems of constant traveling. And even though now we're staying
in some spots much longer than we ever did since leaving New Zealand
(three nights in one spot was a looong stop) we're still living the
nomadic lifestyle.
The main difference is when we were cruising around the world, we
generally had some idea of where our next stop would be, even if we
didn't know what we'd do when we got there. Right now, we're not even
sure of the next destination.

Hold it up
Originally uploaded by slack13.

Central Montana has been cold lately - a few days of 1° highs and around -15° lows. Looking through the travel pictures reminds me what it's like to be warm - like in Bangkok. It was about 80° most days, had to be about 90° the day we arrived, and humid. Also, while we were in Southeast Asia, it rained nearly every day. Luckily, it almost always rained early in the evening, when we were somewhere eating dinner. Maybe a couple of times were we caught in the rain - only one I remember was in Cambodia, while we were touring one of the Angkor temples.

This photos was taken at a Bangkok temple, or wat. It was the wat on the grounds of the Grand Palace.

elastic time

Despite my best intentions, a broadband connection and plenty of free time, I (obviously) haven't updated this page in some time. Ideally, that will change. I'm aiming for at least two updates a week, and hopefully more, as I try to put some of my traveling experiences into written form.


Time plays tricks. The tricks are different when you're constantly traveling, trying to see the highlights in a location then moving onto another, overloading the brain with stimuli.
Tricks especially when a day is split by time on a plane, train or auto into two parts in separate locations. Each city or stop has a place in your brain, rather than each day. Things that happened yesterday morning Germany seem like a long time ago the next day when you're in Scotland.
But as experiences quickly recede into the "past" section of your brain, they also get lumped together. Everything that came before this place happened more or less together, is the impression.
At one point in the midst of the world tour, I stopped, thought, and told someone it seemed like we'd been at our current stop both for a very short time and a long time. Whoever I directed the comment to, someone who was in a stable location in space and time, didn't understand. To them, I was swooping into their life for a few short days before leaving again just like that. To me, the stop had a different quality, as one of many brief stops but also a unique, one-of-a-kind experience (just like all the others).

Now, the whole trip is lumped together in the back of my brain. We're back in the States, unlikely to leave anytime soon, with no exotic destination to look forward to (with no destination of any kind, yet). But I can separate any stop out from the jumble when I think about a specific place, specific people.

The surprising thing to me, now that I'm back, is how easy the return was. I loved the travel. I even loved the moving around every few days, although it was occasionally wearing. I thought I'd have a tough time when it ended.
But more than anything, it seems like my year and a half away from the States was just a pause in my personal flow of time here. Of course, since everyone else's flow of time has continued, I'm resuming my States time a little behind.

a funny thing happened on the way to berlin...

In 2004, I traveled to Germany as the third stop on a European tour and found the language impenetrable and the country extremely foreign.
In 2006, I traveled to Geramany after spending six weeks in Asia and was amazed at how much meaning I could parse from the written language and how un-exotic the culture seemed.

back home

In a parking lot outside a big box retailer in a minor Midwestern city I looked around. I could see a few other big chain stores in the midst of strip mall storefronts. The smaller buildings of national chain restaurants stuck up like islands in the larger sea of parking.
I realized, looking at a retail store a few hundred yards from the store I just walked out of, I couldn't walk between the two if I wanted to. At least, not without braving the multiple lanes of traffic in both directions on the arteries cutting through this parking plain. This seems to be a quintessentially American scenario, if perhaps not uniquely American.
A more uniquely American experience came a couple days previously, when a trip to a Super Wal-Mart (the only grocer in town) was preceded by a stop at the gun shop.

last day

Blue Lagoon
Originally uploaded by slack13.

I found myself neck-deep in the local power plant's waste just before leaving Iceland for good.
And I paid to do that.
The penultimate stop on our World Tour was Iceland's Blue Lagoon. The lagoon is the outflow from the local Geothermal Power Plant. Since the waste products that make it to the lagoon are mineral-rich water and heat, someone had the bright idea to turn the spot into a resort and spa.
Apparently it's one of the most-visited spots in Iceland. Since it's between Iceland's international airport and Reykjavic all the bus companies include an optional stop here on the way to or from the airport. We decided to go ahead and take the option on our way out of the country.
So on the morning of Nov. 30 we woke up, hopped in the waiting bus, and headed to the Blue Lagoon.
We arrived around 10:30 a.m. The sun hadn't yet started to color the sky.
It wasn't a perfect day to take the waters. The air temperature when we arrived was something like 34 degrees Farenheit. A hard, icy wind was blowing. Resort attendants walked along the edge of the water in full artic parkas, gloves, boots and earmuffs.
The water itself was warm. The digital readout said it ranged from 95 degrees to 109 degrees by one of the steam vents. However, the bulk of the water wasn't quite warm enough to take away the chill from the air. Especially since you are required to shower before entering the water, so the wind had a better chance of freezing your ears solid. The sauna and steamroom provided momentary welcome respites from the cold, until their heat proved too much for comfort.
The weather gave the place an other-worldly feel. Steam rising off the milky-blue water obscured the other bathers and hid the resort buildings. It combined with the indistinct lighting and volcanic rocks piled along the boundaries of the lagoon for the overall surreal quality.
We spent about three hours at the Blue Lagoon before catching the bus to the airport and waiting for our flight (which ended up being delayed more than an hour by the first snow we'd seen).
As a resort, it was a disappointment. As spot to show off the unique character of Iceland's landscape and weather, it succeeded even despite the handicap of being an artifical landscape.

last day (II)

We sat on the tarmac for about an hour, our time in Iceland slightly extended for de-icing. The flakes were heavy, wet chunks pelting the ground in sheets, propelled by the wind.
On arrival in Baltimore, we were leery of customs. The form asked for all items purchased overseas - we needed extra space just to write the countries visited. Even if I'd wanted to answer completely, I didn't remember exactly what we'd picked up during the year.
No need to worry. Customs didn't even look at the list. They didn't even want to look in the bags, even when we admitted to having food in the bags. We didn't even get an entry stamp in the passport - just a stamp on our customs form and a wave on through.
When we did arrive, my sister was waiting. She had a different idea - she was worried we'd been extensively questioned and searched. The airport had never changed the status of our flight to "delayed." Instead, the board read "on time" for our arrival. We were amazed we cleared passport control, got our bags and cleared customs in a total of maybe 20 minutes. To her, the process apparently took two hours.

a few notes on the first day back

* Baltimore at night was noticeably brighter from the plane, even more so than London. This isn't to say Baltimore has more lights than London, just that it seemed the average output of each light was brighter. There was more bright white light, as opposed to the usual orange glow. I don't think this is a Baltimore problem. I think this is just the way American cities are. I don't know if it's a case of more lights, or brighter lights, or lights that aren't shielded. But it seemed brighter.

* There's too much space between everything on the streets. The roads are amazingly wide; in some places the sidewalk is amazingly as wide as the road; houses are set further away from the street; there are more parking lots. Even in between buildings, the spaces are just bigger.

* It was odd to get my first handful of American change. It seemed old-fashioned, for some reason.

* The night we got in, we landed at 7 p.m. Baltimore time, or 1 a.m. Europe time. We stayed up until nearly midnight (6 a.m. on my body clock). I didn't feel bad last night, but I woke up at 7 a.m. this morning. I'm sure I'm going to have the same problem tomorrow. This always seems to happen when I flew across a bunch of time zones west. When we flew from Beijing to London we were in the air for 10 hours, always in the sunlight (took off about 10 a.m., landed in the afternoon). We were up for more than 24 hours. I couldn't get a long night's sleep for a week afterward. I didn't feel bad most of the time. It was just at about 5 p.m. I'd totally crash, then when I did go to sleep I just couldn't stay that way long enough. I haven't had the crash in the evening this time around. We'll see how long it takes before I can go back to sleeping in. (That was one nice thing about Iceland: when there's no sun, it's easy to sleep).

* I'm going to want to put USA at the end of addresses for a long time yet.

back again

In the States. Flew into Baltimore last night, a little jet-lagged today, but not too bad (a six-hour flight just doesn't seem that long anymore). Haven't really had much time to reflect on the end of the trip - in a lot of ways, it won't seem like we're done traveling until we have a place to stop and settle (which means until we have jobs, somewhere).

Lots more later, I'm sure - I'll be posting all the stories from the last few months which didn't make it to the blog yet as I see fit. So keep checking...

land of (melting) ice

Last stop. We landed in Reykjavik, Iceland, Monday on an extended stopover between London and Baltimore.

My first thought on landing was the similarity between this and my home in Montana. I realized it's not particularly similar in the details, but in a few bold strokes it is: the lack of trees, the yellowed grasses sticking up through patchy snow, and mountains in the distance.
Mostly it's the lack of trees. Like home, you can see as far as the weather conditions and terrain will let you. It's a perspective most places we've been haven't had, and I'd forgotten how much of a difference it made.
Tomorrow, we get out of Reykjavik on a day's bus tour. Geysers, waterfalls, volcanoes are on the agenda. This will complete a geothermal trilogy for me; I've now visited the earth's main hotspots of Yellowstone, Rotorua, New Zealand, and now Iceland.

The weather isn't as bad as expected. It was right around freezing when we landed (and a cold wind made walking around unpleasant). Today it was up around 40, and even tonight it's warm enough most of the snow and ice is melting. Got my jeans drenched waiting to cross the street when a car hit a puddle, a few minutes after I'd fallen on the lumpy, wet ice covering the sidewalk.

What is just as expected is the daylight situation. When we landed at 4:30 in the afternoon, the sun had already set. That wasn't too unusual for winter locations. This morning, however, I managed to wake up before dawn. And I wasn't awake until 10 a.m. Really, it's perfect for me. Especially since I'm not at work through the four hours or so of daylight.

I didn't realize (until Kirsten read the in-flight magazine on the way here) Iceland has 300,000 people in the whole place, and about three-quarters of them live in Reykjavik. From what I've seen of the place, it looks like a larger version of any mountain town; lot's of cozy-looking buildings and lights on trees and in the street. Feels like I should be skiing while staying here.
The prices aren't as cozy. We're staying at the Salvation Army (not quite as dodgy as it sounds; it runs a basic guesthouse). For single beds with no blankets in shared rooms, we're paying right around $40, each, per night. At least there's a kitchen so we don't have to buy all our food out. I read today Big Macs cost the equivalent of US$7.50. I did, however, have a $4 hotdog which was excellent, as well as being the cheapest option in town.

out of london

London
Originally uploaded by Churcho.

Ryan has one of the coolest locations in London. To walk to the tube (subway) he walks along Tower Bridge, then past the Tower of London, two of my favorite things to look at in the city.

We had quite an ordeal before we saw them again this weekend. After spending Thursday night and most of Friday in Belfast, we were set to fly out to London. Unfortunately, EasyJet pushed our flight back from 9:35 to 11:35 p.m. By the time we actually lifted off, it was close to midnight. Even taking a shortcut to speed up the flight put us in at 1 a.m. Our bags came off at 1:20. The last train into the city from Gatwick Airport was at 1:35 a.m. We made it with a few minutes to spare. A half-hour trip, then found a night bus toward Ryan's. It didn't actually make it round until 3 a.m., then we had to cap the night with a short cab ride before arriving at our destination at 4 a.m. Ryan was very nice about it all, and Saturday we gorged ourselves on a Thanksgiving dinner put on by the LSE American students living in his hall.

Tower Bridge
Originally uploaded by dannywartnaby.

the end of the emerald

In a few hours I will be leaving Ireland. We left the Republic yesterday on a bus to Belfast. Tonight to London, then just one more stop before our final U.S. return: Monday we head to Iceland where we'll be in the dark most of the time.

Ireland has certainly lived up to its reputation for friendliness. We had a couple of contacts here when we arrived. From there our Irish network ballooned; everywhere we met people we were offered places to crash or at least had people to go and get a pint with. The Guinness really does taste better over here, music is easy to find, there are stone ruins everywhere you look. I'll have to get back here someday.

ireland is meant to be experienced indoors...

A long weekend in Galway probably led directly to the cold that hit me today. It doesn't help that Ireland, as expected, has been rainy every day and intermittently cold.
Our Irish friends took us to Galway to meet their friends, who happened to be reuniting a band for a Saturday gig. We got to the venue after their friends had finished, but in time to see the headline act, a band I'd been introduced to just weeks before. We had no idea that's who was playing, but it was an awesome show.
Then a post-show house party running until well into the next day (which I imagine weakened my immune system, allowing the current bug more or less to have its way with me). Loads of fun, and the weekend proved one of my hopes: as soon as you meet one of the Irish, you're their friend (at least if you're introduced by a mutual friend). The friends we came to Galway with left the city Sunday, but we crashed there for an extra day with the new Irish friends (and probably headed back this weekend).
Monday we hired a car (or rented, if you're in America). We've been cruising south along the West coast, taking out-of-the-way routes along windswept peninsulas. Castles, stone forts, grand views (when the clouds clear) - all of them all over the place. Monday night we ended up stopping in Ennis and discovered it was the final day of an Irish Music Fest, so we drank Guiness and listened to a traditional session.

Tonight, we're in Cork. Just arrived after dark, so will hopefully have a chance to rest and recuperate. Not sure where to next - we have the car until Monday.

and Ireland strikes back

After our experience getting through British immigration, we had another fun exchange in Ireland.

As far as I can tell, US visitors are generally given three-month tourist visas. Kirsten preceded me in line, and the official grilled her. Stamps from a year-long study abroad trip in 1997 somehow led him to believe she was a threat to stay and work in Ireland. How long are you staying? About two weeks. So she gets exactly two weeks (after he mistakenly writes two days to begin with). I go through: Are you with her? Yeah. Two weeks.
It wouldn't be a big deal, except we actually wanted 15 days. So we have to make travel plans to avoid becoming illegal overstayers in Ireland.

I'm so far behind on posting things my stories are going to be well out of date by the time they get up here - it'll probably be when I get back to the States and just want a place to put the stories.

We are now in Ireland - spent a day in Dublin and are heading west to meet our friends in Cavan (more New Zealand flatmates). This will conclude our New Zealand reunion - in the last few weeks we've seen Stephen and Reike in Germany, we just left Lang and Steph in Newcastle, and now we're off to see Paul and Kieran.

The tour has been good - it's been great to see everyone, although we haven't always had enough time to see them. We ran into a serious time crunch at the end of Germany. In Freiburg we spent a couple days with some family friends of my uncle, who showed us wonderful hospitality, took us on a day trip into France and walks in the Black Forest. We also found time to see Reike, our former flatmate, although since she was working and we only had a few days, our time was short.

We left Scotland this weekend for Newcastle and stayed with another set of flatmates, Steph and Lang. They managed to get a couple days off work and took us on tours of the countryside (and then on drinking tours of all Northern England's beers). Also had a day to wander around the city, including the old castle.

Not sure what we'll be doing the next few weeks. Two weeks in Ireland, then a weekend in London, a few days in Iceland and back to the States...

Scotland, again

This isn't exactly the peak tourist season here in Northern Britain. It's chilly and often wet, so it's understandable most tourists are giving the land of Haggis a miss in November. Three times now we've booked into a multi-bed shared dorm and been the only people in the room (a happy side effect of traveling at this time of year).
Despite the weather, driving around the Scottish countryside in November is an enjoyable experience. You still get a glimpse of a castle every few minutes, the leaves are still on the trees but have taken the time to change color, the hills are covered in plants dead for the winter, but showing a nicely blended mix of yellow grasses and red heather.
And if you're in Scotland, the skies are supposed to be grey, right?

The haggis is also quite nice. I've sampled the speciality deep-fried, as well as wrapped in bacon and stuffed in a chicken. Gotta say, I'm a fan. It's a dense mix of things that end up tasting like moist meat, even though it's not exactly meat.

On a map, it looks like we've made a comprehensive tour of the heart of Scotland. On the ground, we haven't been anywhere very long. We flew into Glasgow, then bused north to Aberdeen the next day to meet up with another New Zealand friend. A day there, then south to Edinburgh for a couple days. We hired a car Wednesday (after spending Halloween with the Edinburgh crowds) and headed east. The first travel day (or afternoon, really) was mostly spent wandering around Stirling Castle. On the second, we made it to Loch Ness. Today we drove further east, all the way to the Isle of Skye (with a side trip to the dentist for Kirsten, who managed to break a tooth in the midst of our fun). We headed back toward Edinburgh (got to return the car tomorrow) with the intention of stopping part way. Oddly, we hit a part of the country with apparently no afforable accommodation, so we just kept going all the way to Edinburgh.

Another day and a half here, then on to Newcastle (more New Zealand roommates to see). Middle of next week, Ireland (ditto). Then we start to look toward the States...

bonny scotland

When planning this world tour, we were worried about running into poor weather on most of our stops. So far, we've been amazingly lucky. We avoided the rain in Thailand, picked up some fine, clear days in China, had perfect weather in Germany for a hike around the Black Forrest, and even fared well in London.

Today in Scotland we had our first sub-zero (Celcius) night since leaving New Zealand. The sun is shining, the land is beautiful, but the air is cold. I think we have to accept winter is here, and we're not going to be traveling out of it. (It's too bad - New Zealand is nice this time of year).

So far we've toured around Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh. We rented a car yesterday and are now wandering up the Scottish east coast. Our lunch stop today on the banks of a Loch has free Internet, something I haven't often seen on the travels.

those wacky british...

Exchange with the immigration desk after arriving in Glasgow, Scotland from Germany:

Official: How long will you be staying?
Me: About 10 days.
Official: And what is your next destination?
Me: Ireland.
Official: Yeah. How long will you be staying in the UK, including the Republic of Ireland?


And I thought they'd settled the independence question years ago...

steven

This is Steven, our one-time flatmate in Wellington. This week we traveled to Magdeburg, Germany, to renew our friendship. In Magdeburg we sat up and talked while playing dice at his kitchen table, met his latest collection of wonderful flatmates, made a half-day side trip to Berlin, stayed up far too late generally, and definitely stayed up too late on Saturday, our final night. We accompanied Steven to his friend's birthday party. By the end of the night I was talking with someone who barely knew English (I, of course, know no German). He made statements in his language, I made statements in mine, and we had what I think was a rather lengthy and enjoyable discussion in which neither of us knew what the other was saying.

This German trip has been quite nice - it's always good to have someone to talk to when you are in an unfamiliar town, especially if that someone is also giving you a free place to sleep. We've been quite lucky, especially since two of our stops have been to visit people who we did not know two months ago and who we previously met only for a few days during our travels. Everyone has been very gracious (we're in Munich now, staying in the apartment of a guy we met in Thailand. We knew him for three days before we arrived, and here he handed us the key to his apartment so we could stay even though he isn't in Munich tonight). What goes unsaid, and mostly unthought about, is the fact we are unlikely to see these people again. I hope they take us up on our own offer to house them on any future trips to the States, but the odds are against it. Even an email correspondence might die out over the passage of time.
It's nice to think, however, people are willing to put us up even though this probably will be a momentary blip of acquaintance rather than a lasting friendship.

Hopefully we will be able to reciprocate for some of them. We will have a definite karma debt to repay.

the couch-surfing tour continues

To Giessen, Germany, a small university town just north of Frankfurt. We're staying with a couple we met while sailing in Australia. We met lots of people over the course of the past year from several different countries who offered us a place to stay, but no country's people have come through on those promises quite like the Germans. We have a couple of old flatmates here we planned on visiting, and then we're breaking up the trip here and in Munich, with some travelers met on the hill trek in Thailand.
We're also getting help in Scotland, and should have a lot in Ireland. Unfortunately for Ryan, the rest of our London connections never did materialize.

catchin' up

The first installment of posts that should have already been written over the past month or so:

beijing haircut

It's never in any of the guidebooks - where to get a decent, cheap haircut and how to deal with any language or cultural barriers to getting one.
Even in New Zealand, it took a while to find a good place to get my hair cut. In Beijing it wasn't hard to find one - there's one across the street from where we were staying - but it was a bit more difficult to deal with an utter lack of English.

I needed a haircut, so I chanced it. The initial bit was easy - I walked toward the shop and a girl outside said, 'Haircut?' I nod, she leads me inside and through the salon to the back where she proceeds to give me a shampoo and head massage for 25 minutes. It was actually two of what I assume were shampoo cycles, each followed by a massage of the head and neck, then another (conditioner?) cycle, followed by not only another round of massage but also an ear-cleaning. I have never had anyone else's fingers that far into my ears, which was a bit disconcerting. I wasn't sure if this was part of the normal routine, or if she just found my ears particularly offensive.
The whole affair was quite relaxing, other than the ear bit, and then I was led over to a standard hair-cutting chair, where the same girl briefly gave me a shoulder massage.
While sitting there, I was approached by a couple of other girls. The first tried, even though I don't speak Chinese and she didn't speak more than five words of English, to sell me a frequent-user discount card. The second came over, talked for a while, saw my blank look, stopped, then brought over a menu of services. I think she was trying to sell me the optional extras (I made out senior styler), but I couldn't read the menu any more than I understood what she was saying. Thankfully, on the door it read in English 'Haircut 38 yuan' and 38 was the first bit on the list.

The actual stylist had a few phrases of English, enough so we could make ourselves understood when he asked what I wanted and I pointed to my head and made motions for the length. The cut itself turned out well, although after I assumed he was finished he spent another 15 minutes trimming individual hairs he decided weren't sufficiently conforming to the overall effect.
I was slightly distracted as this was going on, since the original washing girl wandered over. I think she was satisfied I couldn't understand what she was saying, so was talking with the stylist about this crazy Westerner. She was certainly amused by my earring, and curious about my eyelashes. Curious enough about the last bit to get me to close my eyes so she could inspect them close up.

The whole thing took more than an hour and a quarter. I ended up with a clean head and a decent haircut.
It all cost me about $5.

filling up the passport...

Left London today to fly into Germany, where we'll be for the next week and a half.
It's my second time in Germany, although the first time around two years ago was mostly just a brief stop in the middle of a long train ride from Amsterdam to Prague. On that trip Germany seemed like a very foreign destination. Now, after six weeks in Asia and 14 months away from the States, Germany seems like a very easy place to travel. Sure, a lot of things aren't written in English (although quite a bit is). But at least you can figure out a bit of what is going on with German, or at least pretend you can, which is something you can't do with Chinese.

It's one aspect of a larger difference I'm noticing after a few months of solid traveling. On my first trips to Europe, and even when arriving in New Zealand, there was a serious feeling of displacement. Even London, on arrival after a long flight when you have`t been abroad, seems like a very foreign place. When I first got into London the jetlag and culture shock froze my brain; it took at least a day to even recognize the language people were speaking to me was English and I should be able to parse their meaning and perhaps even respond.
I haven't had quite as much of the displacement buzz when we've arrived at our last few destinations - probably not since Bangkok. Switching languages, surroundings and cultures is starting to seem like the ordinary manner of things, rather than a huge abrupt change requiring a serious mental effort to accommodate.
This is a good thing, I suppose, in that it means I've traveled around enough to deal with different environments much faster. But I do miss the feeling of arriving into a complete unknown. Not just the unknown of a place you haven't been, but the unknown of a mental shift and adjustment you haven't made anywhere before. Just landing in London that first time set off a buzz in my brain for a few days, and that's always fun.

One other downside to becoming used to traveling is being totally unprepared for jetlag. Before, jetlag was an excuse to explain the brain's inability to keep up with all the new input. When I arrived in London, since it didn't seem particularly daunting, I also expected my body to adjust as easily as my mind. My body had other ideas.
We left Beijing around 11 a.m. (which meant a 6:30 a.m. wakeup call). It was a 10-hour flight across seven time zones, so we landed around 2 p.m. It was a long period of daylight, and by the time we got to bed, our bodies were at about 4 a.m. although the clocks were at 9 p.m. I figured a sleep would put me right, but all week I felt a wave of fatigue hit in the late afternoon.

like, it's art or whatever

Our first full day in London was spent walking leisurely along the south bank of the Thames from Ryan's dorm toward the Tate Modern.
It was just an excuse to have some sort of destination (and it helped that the museum is free). But it ended up being the first day a new installation at the Tate was truly opened to the public: the museum has installed a number of large stainless-steel slides in its huge open turbine room area. The slides are from one to five stories high, and riding is free (although you have to stand in line to get a timed ticket).
Certainly more interactive than the usual art installation, and a slightly incongruous addition to the rooms of paintings, photos and sculptures. But they do have the aesthetic value of a sculpture - the sinewy path of the tubular slides and the visual twists they turn on each other is quite pleasing to the eye. And I'm not much of an art critic anyway. I do know the four-story slide gives you quick ride, a bit of an adrenaline boost and a pleasant rush of feeling. I also know more people were talking, and grinning, about the slides than any other art exhibit or installation I've ever been to.

It reminded me a bit of St. Louis' City Museum, one of the oddest and most-interesting places I've been. That building is crammed full of slides, crawling tunnels and other bits to explore made out of scrap metal and other pieces of what are usually referred to as junk. And it's also a ton of fun.

(Photo is from The Telegraph)

the nomad's life

Since leaving Dunedin in mid-July (our last working stop in New Zealand) we've rarely spent more than a couple nights in the same spot. We've been seeing the must-see sights, taking the tours, having cultural experiences, meeting fellow travelers.
We've also been running on overload, both in terms of taking it all in and in terms of always being on the go. It's a little tough to relax, even when you're not doing anything in particular, when you can never unpack and have no real place to base out of for more than a few hours.

China was the exception. My cousin graciously gave us the run of his apartment in Beijing for the duration of our stay, along with its satellite TV and library of books and DVDs. We took full advantage, spending far too much time just sitting in the apartment. We saw plenty of Beijing sights, did the obligatory Beijing shopping, but we also slept in and occasionally wasted time just hanging around a place we didn't have to immediately leave. It was a much-needed respite.

Now we're in London and back on the move. For most of the next six weeks, we're hoping to hop from one friend to another, staying on floors for a few days and moving on before (hopefully) wearing out our welcome. The floor-surfing era has begun here (and we're very grateful to Ryan, who has allowed us to take up pretty much all of the unoccupied space in his dorm room for the next few days). Next Monday, on to Germany to hopefully stay with four or five different people we've met during the past year's travels. Then Scotland, northern England, Ireland and back to London. It'll be good to see all these friends again, and it'll be nice not to have the daily financial drain of always paying for places to sleep. But I don't think we'll really have a chance to relax again until we return to the States in December (and even then we'll be traveling around crashing with people until we sort out how and where to settle).

london's calling my wallet

Last night we met up with some of Kirsten's friends and went out for dinner. My pasta dish was about 8 pounds, which seemed more than reasonable until I realized it was more than we'd paid for any meal combined (including drinks) since leaving Australia.

Sigh.

another photo post

Gate to the Forbidden City from Tianamen Square, Beijing

View of the Great Wall at Simitai

Marching into the distance

Skewers of street food, ready for cooking. The scorpions on the center sticks were still moving.

Tanks in Bangkok, a few days after the coup (the day we left).

Ronald gives a Thai greeting.

smog

It's the most constant feature of life in Beijing, at least since we've been here (and we have it on good authority it's always like this).
The air is usually a thick, grey soup. Yesterday it was thick enough you could barely make out buildings more than a block or two away. It's been the first thing we do each morning - look out the window to check whether we can see the building across the courtyard. If we can, it's a day worth being outside. If we can't, we go back to bed.

One of the few benefits to the smog are the sunsets. Sometimes the sun turns red around 3 o'clock, making the sunset about four hours long. This would be the place to be for a solar eclipse - by the afternoon, you can stare straight at the sun, no problem.

The official translations of signs here often leave something to be desired. Sometimes they add an entire new level of meaning, as well. With apologies to Stephen's Konglish files, here's a couple of Chinglish examples:

Fun signs seen on a trip to the Great Wall of China:

"Fire is heartless" (but the water, she will love you)

"Don't drive fatigue" (especially if it's hitchhiking)

China

After a month in SE Asia, we've moved north to China. In some ways, it's less foreign in Beijing than it was in Thailand, Laos or Cambodia. At least the areas we've been in Beijing are ultra-modern developed areas (I realize there are other parts of the city and certainly the country that are anything but).
However, as a tourist this is a harder area to function in, or at least there's more of a language barrier. Everywhere we went the past month people, at least the people who where involved in selling things, spoke English. English menus, english signs. There is far less English spoken or written here. And the various English translations are far harder to understand.

island life

Made it to Bangkok, and after waiting an extra day (the train we wanted was sold out) we made it south to the island of Ko Pha Ngan yesterday. This is time to rest and recover, so our days are empty. Last night partied on the beach with some fellow travelers - all the bars open to the beach and play music, so the atmosphere changes as you walk up and down.
There were quite a few people out (including fire dancers) but nothing like what it will be like in a couple weeks - this is the venue of the Full Moon Party each month, when about 10,000 drunken backpackers descend on the beach to drink and dance to DJs and everything else you do when a lot of people are in one spot to party.

coup time

Woke up this morning in Siem Reap, Cambodia ready to head to Bangkok on a bus after three days of temple-seeing, then hopefully hop on a train south to the beautiful Thai island beaches. However, news of the coup in Bangkok caused us to postpone the trip at least a day, to see what's going on over there. So far it doesn't seem like it will be much of a problem for traveling, but hopefully we'll have a better idea in the next day or so.

The unexpected day of rest gave me a chance to put up some photos and the blog entries below about our time in SE Asia.

Cambodia

From Luang Prabang we took buses south. The first day to the backpacker hot spot of Vang Vieng, then to the capital of Vientiene where we caught a flight to Siem Reap and Angkor Wat.
After Luang Prabang the two Laos stops were uneventful. Vang Vieng has beautiful mountains surrounding it, but the town is not pretty and filled with tourists (like us). Vientiene has very little to recommend it, other than the food offered at the night market along the river.

The temples of Angkor are overwhelming - we spent one full afternoon at Angkor Wat, then two days exploring the other temples in the area. There are a lot of temples in various state of ruin (some people estimate the Angkor area had a million people at the time Angkor Wat was built). All amazing, with the vast quantities of stone and intricate carvings. After a while, however, it's all just too much to take in.

One of my favorite moments came on the Bayon, a large monument north of Angkor Wat. I was looking at a carving of a dancer, one of probably thousands of carved dancers just in the one temple. The dancer's dress had a repeating pattern, a mark suggesting a flower with four petals. It looked like the carver had a chisel tipped with the pattern, and he made them all with the petals aligned straight up and down and across.
Except one flower, tilted just off the axis. The one slight deviation made the carver much more real to me. I wondered if he'd hurried up to get on to the next dancer, or if the slight tilt was his way of sneaking in something to mark that carving as his.



The streets of Siem Reap are full of beggars and tuk-tuk drivers even more insistent than those in Bangkok. None of the drivers or children trying to sell you books or postcards take no for an answer, they just follow you asking you the same thing for half a block or until they see a new target.
More surprising were the amount of vendors selling food, drink and souvenirs outside all the temples, and the children at the entrance of all of them, selling books or postcards. Few of them follow you into the temples themselves, but it can be jarring to leave the calm of a 1,000-year old temple and suddenly have 5-10 kids run up to you, all asking you to buy.

Luang Prabang

monk
Originally uploaded by slack13.

We didn't know how long we'd stay in Luang Prabang, but we ended up staying a few days more. The city is relaxed; the tourist area is the old town with French-style wooden buildings built during the colonial period.
The town is wedged in between two rivers. A hill rising in the center of town has a hill-top temple. At the bottom of the hill is the night market, where vendors sell cheap souvenirs and food. The food is grand, with several regional specialties (the main one is a sauce made up of chilis and dried buffalo skin).
The town has decided its main attraction to tourists are a few large waterfalls just outside Luang Prabang. As you walk, drivers constantly ask if you'd like to go to the falls in the local transport. This is accomplished with two words, so that you could be excused for thinking the name of the falls was "Tuk-tuk waterfall."

slow boat on the Mekong - Sept. 10-12

The Mekong River, even here in Northern Laos when it still has to wind south along the whole of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, is a wide, brown, smooth river. The river appears languid rather than powerful, the brown waters sitting flat under the hills. There's aren't any visible markers of movement until the water finds a rock poking through the surface, when the river throughs up sprays of white and you see how fast the water is rushing south.
We joined the Mekong's waters at the Thai-Laos border. A ferry - nothing more than a long canoe with an outboard motor - took us across to Laos. For US$31 we were issued a month-long Laos visa (Laos uses US dollars and Thai baht as much as its own Kip. Cambodia is even stranger. At 4000 rial to the dollar, Cambodians use US dollars as the primary currency and Rial notes as change (if you pay with two dollar bills for a $1.50 bill, you'll get 2000 Rial back).
After a night in the Laos border village of Huay Xia, we headed for the boat ramp. The two-day ride south to Luang Prabang cost 190,000 Kip ($19).
The boat was meant for cargo, but added 32 wooden benches barely wide enough for two people. At least 80 or 90 passengers are on board, sprawled on the floor among baggage and bags of rice. Those seated are in rows of the small wooden benches, not quite wide enough for two American tourists to share comfortable. The wooden plank making the seat is too narrow, the back too straight for any comfort even for one.
The first day, we stake out an area on the floor behind the seats, leaning against stacked bags. The second day, on a different boat, the only room is on the benches. The floor is far preferable. Benches leave your ass with a dull ache after the first hour. Regardless of how you shift, the ache will stay until you get off the boat six hours later.

up in the sky

When I woke up for the first time in Bangkok, I saw something I hadn't seen in at least a year: smog. The blue sky turned into a grey strip just above the cityscape.
There is no such thing as smog in New Zealand, and I didn't notice any in Australia. Driving past the Wellington airport with a friend one time, we watched a jet take off and noticed something we hadn't seen before in the States. The jet's exhaust left two distinct black tracks in the sky, long after it had gone. The air was clear enough to see blemishes that just blend in elsewhere.

The clear skies of New Zealand changed things even at night. More stars in the sky than I'll bet you'll find in any other developed country.
Even in the cities, the night sky offered as many dots as you'll see in most US rural areas. In NZ's rural areas, there might have been more than even my boyhood home in the middle of Montana.
But the most impressive night sky I've seen was from the deck of a sailboat in Australia's Whitsunday Islands during a new moon. The Southern Cross was nearly obscured by all the other points of light suddenly present in and among the cross.

Sept. 4 - in Bangkok

Bangkok is a frenetic place, but the chaos seems like it might just be the outer, visible layer on a city with a calm heart. Or maybe it's just full-go with a few pockets of calm in the shaded alleys.
The first impression for a tourist, at least a white backpacking tourist, is the number of people who eagerly ask you to redistribute a bit of your wealth into their pocket.
Generally they're asking for a swap: your money in exchange for transport. Every few feet on the street someone will offer you a ride in a tuk-tuk or taxi, or tell you the attraction you're walking to is closed and they have an even better destination to take you to (generally these "offers" are more indiscriminate shouting. And a tuk-tuk is a two-person cart hooked to the back of a motorcycle).
After a day, the people making these "offers" descend from the forefront of your awareness into the background noise. As your mind adjusts to Bangkok, the shouts reach annoyment status far less regularly.

Sept. 3

The day our trip shifted from Australia to SE Asia, with a 9-hour flight from Sydney to Bangkok:

Land in Bangkok near midnight. Exit customs, see the sign for our hotel's courtesy car on the railing separating the newly-departed passengers from everyone else in the airport's lower level.
We're looking for the sign because we made the decision to spend $90 (about the same as we'll spend on all our accommodation combined the next three weeks) for a Western-style airport hotel. The thought of landing in Bangkok at midnight and dealing with the chaos and transport options made overpaying for a night seem justified.
We waited with a group of other Westerners headed to the same hotel. The driver didn't show for a few minutes, then came to say the car was full and some of us would have to wait.
When it comes back, the courtesy car turns out to be a packed van and a pickup piled high with baggage. Ours are added to the load, we're ushered into the crowded vehicles and are off.

Every driver in Bangkok, whether transporting tourists or riding a motorcycle, drives the same: just a shade faster than conditions permit, trusting everyone else to do the same. The traffic flows around and through itself against all logic. On a two-lane road, there will be three lanes of traffic. On a three-lane road, there will be four lines of vehicles squeezing past each other.

The cars took us across the expressway, then off into a maze of alleys lined with tin shacks selling food or beer, lit primarily by strings of Christmas lights. Chickens walked among the small buildings, then suddenly the hotel rose out of the incongruous surroundings.
The hotel wasn't worth $90 if it was in the States, much less here where our next night's room cost about $7. The guy in line ahead of us, without a reservation, got a room for two-thirds the price. But it was easier than navigating Bangkok at night dealing with jet lag and culture shock.

Angkor Wat

It's a dodgy connection and a dodgy keyboard, so all the real updates will wait for later. Flew from Laos to Cambodia today (woke up at 4:30 a.m., flight left at 6:30 a.m., got in at 9:30 and had a half day to see the temple).
We have a three day pass to the temple complex, which is how long we'll stay here. This afternoon was spent walking and wandering Angkor Wat itself - the best thing about the place is it's completely open, you can go anywhere. The worst thing is the sheer number of tourists. The tourists aren't going to stop anytime soon, so I think the freedom will.

speeding up

We got off the slow boat and spent an equally slow few days in Luang Prebang, Laos (I realized I don't know exactly how many days it was. At this point, it's all blurring together a bit).
The town, at least the old (and tourist) center, has an easy-going feel. It has a heavy French influence from the colonial days, which gave it, at times, the familiar air of New Orleans' French Quarter. We used Luang Prabang as the base we haven't had for some time, giving us a chance to sleep in, wander aimlessly and revel in trying all the different cheap but good Laotian food. One afternoon a ride to the local waterfalls, a wander through the old palace-turned-museum. Another day walking to the hill-top temple and sampling the night market. Mostly just relaxing and enjoying having some travel companions - two Americans who also spent the past year in New Zealand.

Today, we came south by bus, traveling on narrow, winding roads along and over jungled mountains, with sheer rock cliffs jutting out of the greenery in the distance. Passed through many villages, just lines of wooden thatched huts lining the road. The road didn't even out until the final hour or so of the six-hour journey.
Vang Vieng, our stop for the night, can't be more different from Luang Prabang. It's a town that's grown up around a bus stop, with wide, dusty streets. Every other building seems to be under construction or renovation, as are the sidewalks (which often give way to an open drainage ditch). This town has no old influences, just the influence of the tourists. It's little more than a couple intersections of guesthouses and restaurants, most of which are screening old episodes of Friends for some reason.

over the river and through the woods, to Laos we go...

Spent the last two days on a long, slow boat plying the Mekong River from the Thai/Laos border south through Laos to Luang Prabang, which has a reputation as the prettiest city in Laos.

So far the main thing of note in this country is the currency: 10,000 Kip to 1 US dollar. If I traded in 100 dollars, I'd be a Laotian millianaire.

Even with the easy conversion, it's a bit tough, since all my money has already been exchanged for Thai Baht (37 to the dollar) and then to Kip. It's also a bit odd to see numbers on a menu like this: 8,000 for a beer; 15,000 for fried rice.

And after a few days in a country where a double room costs about $4.50 and food rarely breaks the $2 mark, I find myself thinking things like: I'm not about to go in that overpriced cafe - food is 60 cents more a dish!
At the night market today I heard an American couple balk at a purchase of a quite intricate carved wooden elephant. The too-high price: $6.

A few photos from Thailand:


Bangkok's Grand Palace Complex


Bangkok intersection

Ko San Road, the tourist center of Bangkok


Trekking in Northern Thailand

Dancing in a hill tribe village

Sunset in the village


the Chiang Mai market

north in Thailand

Left Bangkok after just two days to meet up with friends up north in Chiang Mai.

In Bangkok, we mostly just walked around (and sweated) in the heat to get a feel for some of the city, and checked out Buddhist temples (there's a lot of them - more than 300, the book says). Our second day was mainly spent in the Grand Palace complex, which also includes an ornate temple containing a Jade Buddha.

Took the night bus to Chiang Mai on Tuesday night hoping to catch our friends (Americans we met in New Zealand) before they left on a three-day hike Wednesday morning.
Chiang Mai is known for treks taking tourists to hill tribe villages - people well away from the Thai cities and some of the poorest people in the country. We ended up catching our friends and going on the trek with them. The hiking itself was quite nice - we carried backpacks with clothes and a few other niceties, while the food was prepared for us. The hike wasn't too demanding, although the first day was all uphill and the heat/humidity was well up there. Over the three days we walked through a number of villages. Generally they're loose collections of buildings made of bamboo with thatched roofs, with chickens, pigs, dogs and cats roaming around the dirt. The villagers subsist on agriculture - we saw mostly corn, some soybeans and other crops; the tour books say opium is also a major part of some tribes' incomes - and selling crafts to the tourists.

The second night we actually camped in a village. The local children sang and danced for us. Saw the local school as well.

The trip also through in a few extras - one afternoon the hike was eased by riding elephants for part of the route and today the final distance was covered by bamboo rafts.

Now we're in Chiang Mai for another day to finally see the city (and relax a bit). Sunday we'll head to Laos, then make our way toward Cambodia.

bangkok

typing this on a bar's free internet - so it'll be quick [shift key doesn't work, either]. flew in yesterday, walked around the city today. it's hot. after a year in new zealand, and a month in australia's winter without humidity, i'd just about forgotten what this was like. feels like i'm back in mississippi. actually, with the smog, heat and humidity it feels more like houston. not good. i'm enjoying the rest of the city so far - it's good to be somewhere a little bit crazy. the roads are hectic - crazy drivers, cross at your own risk crosswalks. tuk-tuk drivers are annoying. streets are also annoying - we wandered in a maze of alleys for nearly an hour before we found the guesthouse this evening. street vendors everywhere - lots of food on sticks. i'm always a fan of food on a stick.

In Sydney, again, after a three-day trip to Uluru/Ayer's Rock in the Red Center. We fly to Bangkok on Sunday, but our last three days won't be much for sightseeing. We're more just trying to recover after the past month and get some things sorted out - we're sending another package home (the tent and a few other things we don't figure we'll need from here).

big red

Ayer's Rock, or Uluru, is the iconic image of Australia's outback, and possibly of the country as a whole.
You see pictures of it in every shop, in every travel book. I don't know when I first saw a picture of the Rock, but I'm sure it was when I was a kid in some book. The point is, just about everyone knows what it looks like, even those people who haven't thought about traveling to this side of the world.
But the thing is, they're wrong.
I was a bit worried seeing the Rock would be like seeing Mt. Rushmore. You see all the pictures of Mt. Rushmore, and then you get there, and it looks exactly like the pictures. So much so that the actual Mt. Rushmore is less impressive than a picture of Mt. Rushmore - the real thing has nothing extra to offer.
Uluru is nothing like that.
For one thing, when you see the pictures, you don't notice or can't see the texture of the thing, the ancient weathering scars and pockmarks. You don't realize how many different views there are, depending where you look from. You don't see just how it looms over the flat red desert. You don't have a sense of just how much texture the rock has, or how the color changes throughout the day with the sun's movement. You don't get to see how it appears more than anything to be a painted backdrop as you drive toward it, until the moment where it suddenly becomes very much three-dimensional.
You don't get to feel the heat and dust of the dry desert air and the sun's unceasing glare as you walk around the base of the rock, or the silence.
You don't realize how each curve, each protrusion, each cut, each indentation has it's own character. You don't realize how when you're close up to the Rock, each spot, each nook seems to have its own special character, at once separated and a part of the whole.
You don't get lost in the unreal contrast and edge where the deep, deep red meets the endless deep blue of the sky; you don't see the sharp edge where rock and sky push against each other, or the soft touch of green the trees provide. You don't feel how the colors, the texture, the silence, the massiveness of it all seem to give the Rock an ageless feeling.
You don't see the difference in the rock itself, how parts of it are curved and raked smooth by eons of wind and sand, or how other parts are jagged or just missing where boulders have fallen off. You don't see the place where the red stone seems to drip onto a grey exposed patch like candle wax.
Most of all, you don't get the sense of Uluru having been here for much longer than you can imagine, of how insignificant and out-of-place the tourists walking up one of its ridges look, of how it seems to exude a quiet presence.

I can now confirm....

...Kookaburra does sit in the old gum tree.

red back

It's the name of one of Australia's deadly spiders, but what I'm talking about today is the state of my own trailing side. After a day of snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef (a full day - almost 5 hours in the water) and an under-application of sunscreen, I came out with a serious sunburn. It probably was inevitable, given the amount of time my bare back faced the sun, but it's been a while since I had a painful burn.

Looks like the pattern for now is a bunch of (mostly prewritten) posts at once when I get a connection (and time).

We are in Cairns today (got in yesterday on the overnight bus, and essentially spent the day catching up on sleep as well as walking around the city center for an hour or two). I did the snorkel trip - didn't think I'd had enough after just two short snorkel sessions on our sailing trip. The reef looks just like the nature documentaries make it out to be. Brightly colored fish, lots of crazy shapes of coral, all sorts of different things everywhere you look. Didn't see anything really big - no turtles, no sharks. Saw a lot of fish I'd seen in aquariums or pet shops, and some I'd never seen before (lots of different parrotfish). The colors of the coral itself weren't quite as bright as the TV shows might have led me to believe, but I hear part of the problem is the tourism itself tends to kill some of the coral.

It's been a week of water - two nights on a sailboat (saw whales, attended a beach party, did a little snorkeling, stayed up too late and woke with the sunrise) followed by the day of snorkeling. Now we're headed to the land of no water - we fly to Uluru/Ayer's Rock tomorrow morning.

timing

On this trip we're headed to some great places, but we're not heading there at a great time.
Australia is an exception. Any other time, I think northern Australia would likely be too hot. Right now, it's pretty good (although another 5-10 degrees would be welcome some days).
However, we're headed to SE Asia for Monsoon season, then northern China in October (could be cold), then the UK and Ireland in November (will be cold). We cap it all off with a short stint in Iceland on the way home in late November. I'm not sure, but I'm guessing we'll have about four hours of sun each day.

The worst part about cruising along in winter or fall for nearly a year isn't the weather. We're sitting in Australian winter now, and the weather's better than New Zealand's summer ever was.
No, the worst part is the daylight hours. Outside of maybe next month in SE Asia, I'm not going to see sunlight past 6:30 p.m. until the days lengthen back home next summer. We're on the wrong side of Daylight Savings for a year.
It makes it hard to squeeze in a long day's traveling, especially when you tend to sleep in slightly past dawn.

Daylight isn't the only thing we've missed perfect timing. The currency fluctuations haven't been in our favor, either. When we got to New Zealand the NZ dollar was at a several year high against the US dollar. At the time, of course, we were primarily spending our US savings. After a year of earning NZ dollars, the Kiwi has fallen from around 75 cents to the US$ to 61 cents.
It's kind of like buy high, sell low. At least our money should go farther once we get to Thailand.