New Year, New Country

I arrived in Xi'an at 10PM last night. As a result, by the time I'd collected my bag and such, I spent midnight sitting on the airport shuttle to Downtown. But by some fabulous bit of luck, I arrived at the downtown historic Bell Tower at the stroke of midnight. As I got off the bus, Roman candles and firecrackers erupted in the square across the street. So with my backpack still on my shoulders, I headed on over. As I walked, a fleet of giant red and yellow lanterns floated into the sky. I arrived and watched people unfold the delicate lanterns and light them, then wait for them to inflate like hot air balloons and float delicately into the sky. A very peaceful contrast to the cacaphony of firecrackers and other pyrotechnics (realeased by rank amateurs - I definitely caught a Roman candle in the thigh...but I survived unscathed). As I was standing there with eyes agog in total wonderment and happiness, this group of Pakistani guys walked over and introduced themselves. I guess they're students at the aeronautics institute in town, and they are always looking out for foreigners because when they first arrived and realized nobody spoke English, they had a really rough time. So we hung out and had some laughs (including posing for photos for local celebrants who liked the foreign influence to the party), but then it was really, really cold compared to Bangkok, so I decided to split.
Arriving in town without a reservation at that hour, I'd booked a hotel at the airport - Super 8, of all things! Let me tell you, after a month of sleeping in absolute bottom-end dumps, this place was heaven. Two words: down comforter. Best night of sleep ever...
Right now it's just about midnight where you guys are, so I hope everybody is partying hard and having a great New Year's celebration.
All the best in 2009!!! The year of Obamaaaaa!!

Happy New Year! (edited)

And happy birthday Brother Chris!! Not sure if I'll be able to call you tomorrow since I'll be on a plane for most of it, but if I don't get to talk to you until your b-day has passed, hope it's awesome.

Well, after my last post, I went and got that Thai massage. For those of you who have never hade one, get one! Oh my god, best thing ever. There's definitely a lot of being twisted into a prezel and then kneeded with elbows/feet/etc., but it's awesome. I've been sore all day between all my walking around town and three days of stitting still on boats/busses, but I walked out feeling like a million bucks.

Then I went out to explore Khao San Road. Yup. Just as nuts as they say it is. Tourist heaven. I feel like I've been dropped on another planet... (this is where my computer timed me out and I couldn't finish the post). Anyway, yeah, Khao San Road is like Bourbon Street with shopping. Crazy. Neon lights, loud music, a bunch of backpakers wandering around looking for a party...it's definitely a scene, and now I can say I saw it, but all I can say is I'm really, really glad I didn't get a hotel there. Yuck. My neighborhood was only about a block away, but it was way quieter and less full of places with signs like "Cocktails in a bucket! Cheap!"

I don't think we're in Laos anymore, Toto...

But the one good thing about Khao San Road was what I stumbled upon while scavenging for decent street food (ugh. Pad Thai, fruit shakes, and chicken on a stick...how unoriginal. And felafel, of all things! One guy did have a cart with fried bugs, but I wasn't up for doing it alone). I wandered up and suddenly hear all this traditional sounding music coming from behind this temporary bandstand. I get around to the front side, and it's Thai dancing! Yay! Scenes from the Ramayana. The dancing was way, way better than the stuff I saw in Laos, and I hope I got some good pictures. Yay free New Year's festivities! Thai dancing is just so elegant. It's very contained motion. Not a lot of waving your arms around and flashy acrobatics. But it's mesmerising. So much revolves around the hands. After my experience with my own flippers-for-hands in kathak dancing back in India, I have a huge appreciation for it. And their fingers! Most of us, when we extend our fingers fully, will have a flat surface from palm to fingertip. Not these guys. Their fingers curve back in this unbelievable arc. It must take years of stretching. So when they put their hands palm to palm, their hands look like an X. It's gorgeous. And the constumes are amazing. Headdresses that sparkle in the light, elaborately painted masks for all the animal and monster characters, and embroidered outfits covered in sequins and other shiny things (I'm like a raven, I love that stuff). I sat around for half an hour or so watching, until it was time for a new act...a more modern band with a drag queen on drums. I took that as my cue to depart.

And that was that. 36 hours in Thailand. Mission accomplished. Off to China!

One day in Bangkok

The bus ride to get here was something else. For starters, we had a stewardess. Yup. You heard me. A beautiful woman dressed in a snappy but very short uniform who walked up and down the aisle of a swerving bus in high heels serving coffee and Pepsi and otherwise looking after our comfort. The bus itself was pretty sweet, since its seat had leg-rests attached to them and there was enough space between the seats that you could lean all the way back without having to look up the nose of the person sitting behind you. It also had twinkly star ceiling lights a la tacky prom limo. I definitely feel like I've been dropped in another universe from Laos.

My one day in Laos has been pretty good. Got a dump of a room to crash my junk in. Breakfast with my new Canadian friends, who have me halfway convinced that if I don't find a teaching job for the fall, I should go teach with them in Korea (don't panic...I'm sure it'll sound way less awesome in a day or two). Then I took a little rest and got all my leaky-roof-stank clothes cleaned. Then I went for a walk. I strolled all over the downtown area, checking out whatever I could in a day. I saw a 40 meter tall golden Buddha, had a phone eat a $5 phone card when I tried to call Air China, and then dodged the advice of the suspiciously helpful strangers who wanted to tell me the Royal Palace and Emerald Buddha Wat were closed for New Year ceremonies. Jerks. Obviously they were no such thing. They suggested I go see a whole bunch of smaller wats all over town to make up for it...in a Tuk-Tuk that they were more than happy to negotiate for me. It makes me fightin' mad to think that these guys are willing to send a foreigner off on a wild goose chase to a bunch of second-rate monuments that give a lame impression of his country just for a couple lousy Baht. It's like somebody standing on a corner and telling people "oh, the Jefferson Memorial and Capitol Building are closed today, but please, allow me to send you to the Podunk Museum and this lovely little emporium I know..." grrrr...
But I digress and allow my pet peeve to get the best of the story.
The palace was spectacular, but the highlight for me was the Emerald Buddha. Apparently it was found in the 1400s. It was (strangely) covered in plaster, but when the plaster started flaking off they realized it was actually carved out of solid jade. No photos allowed inside or I'd upload one, but it's pretty spectacular. It's enshrined in this huge room that's painted with these incredibly intricate paintings of Buddha's life. It sits atop a glittering pagoda that's almost 2 stories tall and covered with gold, red, and clear mirrors. He's lit from below by hidden bulbs that shed a soft light that looks like it's radiating from Buddha himself. He is guarded on all sides by sets of 3 gilded angels who occupy successive steps up to him, and the whole lot is guarded by two giant angels, also in gold. Even without my glasses it's truly beautiful. I'm beginning to wish I'd brought them. It's one of those places that inspires reverence even in the non-believer. Gorgeous.
Well, off to enjoy the last of my warm weather vacation and go get a Thai lady to stomp on my back!

Update

Well, I've made it to Thailand and have a bus ticket to Bangkok with a departure time of 3:30 PM, so I've got a couple hours to kill. All seems to be going to plan (famous last words).

So to get everybody up to date. Sansuny's baci ceremony was really awesome. A true Lao experience. I rode up on the back of Kee's moto (Kee is also one of the girls from My Library, and Sansuny's best friend). It was raining - in the dry season! So I was holding the umbrella, she was driving, and the two of us were getting pretty wet. But we arrived in one piece just in time for the ceremony. I got in and immediately was swarmed by a crowd of her relatives (mostly elderly ladies) who tied white strings to my wrists. For those who don't know what a baci ceremony is, it's a call to the protective spirits to watch over the person who is embarking on a new phase of life. It could be travel, a new baby, a marriage, a new job, or in Sansuny's case an international move to Bangkok and the start of university. Since I am a traveler, I got to get in on the good vibes. The strings tie the spirit to you, and you're supposed to wear them until they fall off so that they will protect you as long as possible.

At any rate, once I had that wonderfully warm welcome, the cermony went on, complete with a few minutes of prayerful chanting, and then it was party time. We adjourned to the lawn, which had tents set up and karaoke/keyboard setup, and tons of awesome Lao food. So we chowed down and got straight to dancing. I was there with an Australian girl who works at the center and had just gotten back from a vacation in Thailand, so I had another foreigner to hang with who could walk me through what was going on. We did the line dancing, we did the Lao walk-in-a-circle-dance, and as the night wore on, we just danced like crazy people. It was really fun times. The Australian girl and I ended up dancing with her two older brothers, which everybody thought was hilarious. And in the end, everybody got soaking wet and had a great time. It was an awesome way to end my Luang Prabang experience, and a great "real Laos" moment. I'm so grateful to have had the chance to go.

The slow boat trip was great as well. Long, and with butt-breaking hard, uncomfortable benches (sorry Dr. S, but this has done my back in - my upper back is dying to crack back into place!). But what a view. I got a lot of great shots of life along the Mekong. It was really beautiful to go along and see these isolated little villages along the way. I saw a group of women panning for gold in a sandbar, a lot of kids running around, people doing laundry, people fishing, and above all, the beautiful river and mountains. We also saw the "fast boat," of which I've posted a photo, and let me just say I'm really, really glad that I didn't take it. They have to wear helmets!!! Madness!! I've taken tons of photos and there's no way to get them all up right now, but I tried to put a few on here for you to get an idea.

The first night we spent in Pak Beng, which is basically just a ferry stopping point. Not much there. I stayed in a place at the top of the hill (cheap because everyone else gives up before they get there) and by hiking up the hill a bit more I got a great view of the sunset over the wat, and in the morning I saw the sunrise as well. Very cool. I also went to the morning market before the boat left, and that was really cool. All the produce vendors were just putting their stuff out but the butchers were already well underway - let me tell you, that section of the market was not for the animal lover or the faint-hearted, but I suppose if I'm going to eat meat, it's good to remind myself from time to time that it doesn't grow as a steak in a shrink-wrapped grocery store container.

Last night we got in too late to make the border crossing, but I ended up hanging out with these two Dutch guys and this couple from Canada that's been teaching English in Korea for several years. The female half of the couple happens to be a fellow dancer, which was awesome. We talked dance and teaching abroad and just hung out until it got late and was time to crash and we headed our separate ways. But now just by chance I was walking through town killing time and I've run into my Canadian friends again, and it turns out they'll be on the same bus today, so it looks like we haven't seen the last of each other. Fun times!

I lived

Just got off the slow boat, and I'm still getting my land legs back. Everything feels like it's rocking when I'm sitting down.
Anyway, I'm super tired and my caboose is killing me (hard bench seats from 8AM to 6PM for two straight days), so I'll fill in full details later, but the trip was great, the baci ceremony was amazing, and I'll tell you all about it tomorrow when I'm killing an afternoon before getting on the bus (if the bus still leaves at 7 as I've heard)

Off to new lands

So last night I headed home after My Library and for some reason all the wats, which are usually ringing their prayer time bells at that point, were instead rocking a drum and cymbal beat that would not have been out of place in a marching band. I'm not sure what it was all about, but it was really cool.

I got to talk to my mother and her side of the family yesterday evening, which was really great. I haven't spoken to my mother in over a month, and I haven't talked to my grandmother, great-aunt Margaret, or uncle Don since I left the country - or longer! Christmas is great for that kind of thing. What a great way to cap off the night. Or it would have been were it not for the hippies partying down the hall all night playing cheeseball psychedelic music at max volume. But whatever, it was Christmas. Who can be cranky over such trifles?

Tonight is Sansany's baci ceremony, which is really exciting. I have to figure out how to make my sindh (traditional Lao skirt) look presentable...let's just say they're not meant for hourglass figures...I've got to hustle out of here so that I can be back to meet Kee to get a ride out to the village. I'm so excited and honored to be a part of it...

I'm hopping on my "slow boat to China" (to the border to the bus to Bangkok to the plane to China) at 7:30 tomorrow morning...and it's raining!! For pete's sake, it's the dry season and it's raining. I'm hoping it proves picturesque rather than ruins my photo ops.

At any rate, being on a boat means it might be hard for me to get to the net, so if you guys don't hear from me for several days, you'll know it's not because I followed some random people to a party and they abducted me (relax, guys! Jeez!). :)

Merry Christmas!

It's been a very cool couple days. Last night I figured out that one of the local bookshop shows artsy-fartsy movies every night, so I watched Elegy, then walked home under the bright stars of Orion. For some reason it was the only constellation I could see as I walked along the Nam Khan River, but it was really bright. Very beautiful.

But the coolest thing of all is technology. I got myself signed up for Windows Live Messenger and managed to have a video visit to my Dad's family's annual Christmas Eve bash. Seeing everybody's faces brought me to tears. They sang "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" when the camera first popped up, and there went the waterworks. But after a moment, they were all their Taylor-y selves and we spent the remainder of the time cracking up - especially with my uncle wandering in and out of the shot wearing the turban I got him in India! It was cool not only to talk face to face with everybody, but to see the party going on behind them as usual. It was the next best thing to being there. Technology is truly amazing. So thanks, Larry, for going out to get the webcam to make that possible. It's one of the best Christmas presents I ever got. And tonight I get my other Christmas present: a phone call to my Mom and her side of the family.

It just goes to show that the flurry of wrapping paper and food is really just icing on the cake; there's not so much as a strand of tinsel here in Laos, but my day is made because I got to be with my family for Christmas...I hope all of you out there are lucky enough to have the same.

Merry Christmas!

Partying Lao Style

Strange but true: it makes you cool if you bring a falang to a party.
You'd think the Lao would be sick of us tourists by the end of the work day, but that is apparently not the case. Last night I headed back to the guesthouse only to find the courtyard across the road filled with a bumpin' party. Complete with an MC who handled the festivities by singing karaoke. It was really loud so I figured since I wouldn't be sleeping for a little while, I'd at least head out to the patio and enjoy the music and update my journal. No sooner had I sat down than a guy who had stopped in to visit the owners of the guesthouse comes over to me and says "come to the party with me." I figured it's only across the street, so why not?
He plunked me down in the middle of his friends. If any of them spoke English, they'd forgotten how after several rounds of celebratory libations, so I kind of sat there while they stared at me and smiled. After a lot of attempts, I finally managed to get someone to tell me what the party was about - apparently the brother of the guy who invited me has just been elected head of his village, so he was throwing the party to thank his supporters.
I danced with a couple of the guys. I missed the line dancing, which apparently happened earlier in the evening, and ended up doing Lao-style dancing, which is pretty much walking in a circle and moving your hands a little. There must be more to it than that but I had no idea what I was doing, so I just waved my hands a little. I'm sure I was quite a sight. The other attendees (especially the table full of single guys I'd been plunked down at) certainly got a kick out of it. But I have to say, some of those Lao songs go on forever - that's a lot of walking in a circle...
After a few dances I excused myself to go home and sleep. But a good time was had by all, and I got to party local style.

I can't believe it's practically Christmas

It's amazing how things creep up on you when there isn't a media barrage reminding you every few minutes that the time to buy stuff has arrived...in a few hours it'll be Christmas Eve here and beyond my epic worldwide shopping expedition (which started months ago and was actually fun), I've barely given Christmas a second thought. But now I'm sitting here realizing that in a few hours my family will start getting together for a weekend of enjoying each other's company and I won't be there for it. As much as the Grinch in me loves missing Christmas, this is the one part I'll miss. If this trip has taught me anything, it's how much my family means to me and how much I miss them when I can't just pop in on them whenever I want. So to all my family out there, I love you and I'll miss you over the next couple of days. And to everybody who's secretly thinking how lucky I am to be skipping what many consider to be the most stressful family gathering of the year, just take a minute to be grateful for it, stress and all.
But missing my family doesn't mean I'm going to be moping around over the next two days. I'll be getting in my last couple days of volunteering, trying to make myself useful as much as I can. Other than that, I'll be getting ready to jump on my slow boat to China. Or rather the slow boat to Thailand from which I'll take a bus to Bangkok from which I'll take a plane to China...but I'm gonna stick with "slow boat to China" because it sounds so much cooler. :) I'm very excited to watch the Lao countryside slowly slip by from the deck, and to wrap up in my blanket and read a good book and update my journal with all the reflections that a new year brings on. Lots to process this year, that's for sure! It's been an eventful one.
In other news, I have finally finished uploading my photos! For now, at least. I've given up on uploading video, because it runs at the rate of approximately 1 minute of video per hour of upload. Not worth it. But you can see the rest of them at http://www.flickr.com/photos/30772531@N03/sets/
Each country has a "favorites" set, so I'd recommend that. I don't care how fascinating you find my travels, nobody wants to sift through 2000+ pictures of somebody else's vacation, so that's the way to go. Maybe 20-odd photos per country, which is more than enough.
Enjoy!

Mellow day today

Last night I did manage to meet up with one of the two people from my cooking class. Becca showed up with a Russian (Slava) in tow, and the three of us headed off to eat some fried bugs. We were so excited about it, and then the waiter drops it on us: they are out of fried bugs. No! It took forever to work up the courage to eat them, and now the moment has passed. Alas. So we had to just learn to be ok with regular food. We did try fried seaweed, though, which is quite tasy. The only "interesting" part of our repast was the jeowbong. We were so excited about it, and we were so proud that the waiter looked at us with a new respect when we asked for it...then we got it. Apparently the real recipe for jeowbong includes pa daek (the heinous-smelling fermented fish goo) and re-constituted dried buffalo skin. Let me tell you, pa daek tastes like it smells. All that horrible rotten stench transfers directly to your mouth. And the buffalo skin, which I didn't even bother trying, is apparently like the funky veins of gunk you get in a piece of meat that you can chew forever and never put a dent in. Yikes. So there goes my enthusiasm for real jeowbong...but my love for the one in my recipe book is unchanged.
Today it was back to Big Brother Mouse and My Library. A low-key day today, not a heck of a lot going on. But I did realize that it's been a really, really long time since I had to remember which verb tense any word I said was in. Future condtional? Dang, I don't remember that at all. So while my photos upload to flickr I'll be looking up verb tenses so I can be sure I'm teaching the right thing.
In happy news, Sansany (the girl from My Library who will be going to Bangkok on scholarship) is having a baci ceremony the day after Christmas and has invited me to go. I'm so honored to be included, so I'll also be looking up how to be on my best behavior at a baci ceremony. I'm so glad I will still be in town to go!
I hope my health holds up - I think I'm catching yet another cold. Urg. Hopefully I can kick this one like I did the last one, because otherwise that'll put a cramp in my visits to BBM and ML, as well as my plans to take the slow boat up the Mekong to get myself to Thailand (being on a damp, chilly boat for two days does not sound appealing with a cold). Go away cold!
No plans for tonight. Maybe I'll try to find a bunch of fresh OJ to kick-start my immune system. Beyond that...I was going to try to make it sound exciting, but yeah, no plans.

Note to the fearful

I'm told that the words "oyster sauce" call to mind some kind of salty, fishy, stinky concoction that is very scary to the meat and potatoes crowd. In truth, it is quite sweet and tastes nothing like an oyster. It's one of the ingredients that gives Chinese food a slightly sugary flavor. Almost like the hoisin sauce you dip egg rolls in. Try it, you'll like it.

Today was awesome. We did some trekking through hill villages in the morning - past poinsettas growing wild...as trees! Then got to play with elephants a bit in the afternoon. The ride was a bit of an anticlimax since they put you on a howdah (basically a big saddle-chair). I did not, as I'd hoped, get to drive. But I did get to feed them once we finished the ride. One was quite the greedy old girl and I literally had to wrestle with her trunk to keep any aside for her less-pushy companion.

Tonight I am (probably) having dinner with at least one of the people from cooking class yesterday. With any luck we'll go eat some fried bugs - I found a place that sells them. She seems game for anything, so I may have found my eat-a-bug buddy. Then tomorrow it's back to Big Brother Mouse and My Library!

Another lovely day!

Today was cooking class at Tamnak Lao Restaurant. It was awesome. We went to the market in the morning (I'll be back, they've got tons of clothes to replace the ones the wash destroyed), and got to see all the crazy Lao foods you can't get back in the states (mmmm...buckets of fish that have been sitting out for months...pa daek smells delicious...). Then we headed back and saw 8 dishes demonstrated, tasted them all, and then proceeded to make five of them on our own. Needless to say, it was wall to wall eating most of the day. Nice. I even got to make my favorite, larp (sometimes called laap). It's a ground meat salad with lemongrass, garlic, and herbs. Complicated, but delish. I also had my first experience with jeowbong, a chili paste whose flaming red color had me too scared to try it until he started cooking it - it smelled so delicious I had to have a taste. It's actually pleasantly sweet with a little kick. I'll have to make it for people when I get back. You'll love it.
But I thought some of you might be curious to know what Lao food tastes like, since I've raved about it so much. So I've decided to enclose a recipe! Tamnak Lao gave us all a recipe book to keep, so I thought I'd share their wisdom. You can whip this up (including chopping time) in the time it takes to steam rice!

Khua Maak Kheua Gap Moo (fried eggplant with pork, serves one)
60 grams ground pork (or just a boneless pork chop hacked into tiny pieces)
3 green onions
1 asian eggplant (long eggplant, can also use a regular eggplant/aubergine)
2-3 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons oyster sauce (available in Asian section at the supermarket)
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
2.5 tbsp oil (best is soybean or canola)

1) chop the spring onion, both green and white parts
2) cut the eggplant into thin strips about 2 inches by 1/2 inch
3) heat 2 tbsp of the oil in a wok/frying pan on high until smoking hot, add the eggplant and stir fry until it begins to soften and turn golden, set aside.
4) reduce heat to medium, add garlic and stir until garlic begins to change color
5) add pork and stir fry until cooked through
6) add sugar, salt, oyster sauce, and green onion. Stir thoroughly to mix, then add eggplant. Stir fry until all ingredients are cooked through - hint: don't cook eggplant until it's mush, just until soft

The recipe above only serves one, but can easily be doubled. Serve it with steamed rice - glutenous (a.k.a. "sticky") rice if you can get your hands on it. To go super-Lao style, start dinner with one of those 2-minute vermicelli noodle soup packets you can find in the Asian department at the supermarket (not ramen, the glass noodle kind). Throw in some mint leaves or salad greens just before you eat it, and you've got a 2 course meal that took 20 minutes to make.

Next stop: hiking and elephant riding tomorrow!! This weekend rules!

Just a few pictures

Well, at last my hours at the net cafe are paying off. I have caught up on all my photos! As of today every photo I've taken in the last four months will be on my flickr page. As soon as I figure out how to give everybody open access to it, I'll post that on the page so you can have a look. Now I have to start on the videos...

But I thought I'd attach some pics of the scenery here in LPB. The photo with me in it (and my a-little-too-affectionate student) is at Big Brother Mouse, and the other indoor shot is some of the girls I've been working with at My Library. The picture of the monks is just kind of in there because it's cool...

Uggggggh.

I got up this morning looking forward to fresh laundry, but when I opened the bag, I got a rude surprise. Everything was still half wet, so any garment that was touching my pink shirt had gotten dye all over it. I've sent them back for another wash, but I'll bet dollars to donuts that they're irredeemable. Plus, one of my shirts - my nicest one - was missing and the girl at the front desk informed me that she must have packed it in room #1's laundry bag, but we can't get it back because they checked out at 2AM today.
Noooooo!
I can live with blotchy pink undergarments, but all my shirts will have to be replaced. I was hoping not to have to do that until China where things are cheaper and the weather is really cold. The only stuff they have here is lighter weight, so I'll have to get even more stuff when I get to China in a little over a week. Maybe I can get by on what I have plus one other light sweater until next week...dang.

The Depth of my Nerditude

I am a giant, giant nerd. And clearly born to be a teacher, it seems. Today I was working on writing with some of the kids at My Library, and they all needed to work on past tense, so I was making up sentences for them to switch to past tense as fast as I could. We wrapped up for the day and where do you think I am now? At the net cafe, of course. I'm writing up stories in the past tense (one story with regular verbs, one with irregular ones) for them to fill in the blanks. In short, I'm designing worksheets. Nerd nerd nerd nerd nerd. Nerd. But if I needed any further proof that teaching is what I should be doing with my life, this is totally it. I love this stuff. I'm more energized than I've been in weeks...
Tonight, I'm gonna top it all off with a visit to the Children's Cultural Center to see their weekly presentation of a dance, music, and puppet show. Should be really, really cute. I'm super excited.

Stuff that is awesome

Coincidences are awesome. It just so happens that the girl staying next to me in the guesthouse sat next to Chris on his bus trip from the Plain of Jars earlier this week. I realized they'd been on the same bus when she started talking about having to stop the bus to go right a UN van whose driver had managed to flip it. She's Israeli, and when I told her I'd been to Israel recently, she almost freaked out. So we're having dinner tonight. Should be fun times.

Big Brother Mouse is awesome. There were so many foreigners visiting today, and it was a really good thing they did, because we had well over a dozen kids of all ages come by to practice English. I got another live one today. He wanted to practice his English flirting skills. A totally harmless kid, of course, but it made for very animated chatter.

My Library is awesome, awesome, awesome. I stopped in today, and it is one of the coolest learning centers I've ever seen. The place is small (they've had to downsize due to skyrocketing rents in Luang Prabang over the past few years), but it's chock-a-block with great resources and kids dropping in to take advantage of them. There are computers for learning tech skills, others that show popular English movies with subtitles so the kids can practice following spoken English and quick reading. For the musically inclined, there is an i-pod equipped with English music and scrolling lyrics so they can pick up English that way. There is a 3-dimensional "frog dissection" puzzle, a library full of books, a gallery of the kids' own photography, a stack of logic puzzles and math puzzles. It's ideally designed for developing both English and critical thinking skills, and the kids love it. The place was hopping when I arrived. I met a young lady who in a little over a week will be taking her first airplane flight to Bangkok, where she will start as a scholarship student, another young man who was novice monk for 4 years and is now working on improving his English for college, and a whole assortment of other kids. It's incredible. They love it, and many of them call it their second home. So I know what I'll be doing with my afternoons and probably several evenings for the next several days. And what an opportunity for me as a teacher - the place is a model for what a great learning environment can be, so you can be sure I'll be soaking up as much professional info as I can while I enjoy the company and energy of all these kids who are so motivated and hungry for knowledge.

On that note, if anybody out there is looking for worthy causes to send a contribution to for the holidays, both of them can really take even a very small donation a long way, so if my enthusiasm is contagious, take a look for yourselves:

Big Brother Mouse can be found at www.bigbrothermouse.com
My Library can be found at www.thelanguageproject.org

First of probably many similar updates

I had a deliciously indolent day today. Well, afternoon anyway. I went back to Big Brother Mouse again and found it a little more taxing than yesterday - today's visitors were less comfortable with their English and it made them very hesitant to try to say much. There was a lot of "do you have a big family?" "yes, I have a big family...." with no elaboration, and I'd have to coax more information out of them, but over the course of the morning they loosened up a bit and we had a few laughs. I didn't get to talk to Sansuri again, but there were three other first year college students that I spoke with over various parts of the morning. Man, lanuage barriers are exhausting. It certainly gives me a whole new level of respect for people who come to the States and have to struggle with culture shock and language shock. I'm unbelievably lucky to have happened to be born in a country whose language just happens to be the fast-growing lingua franca of the world. Everywhere I go, almost everyone speaks enough English for me to get by without learning much more than token phrases like "hello" or "thank you." It makes traveling really convenient, but it's pretty incredible that everywhere I go, my language has preceded me...
But on to my deliciously indolent afternoon. With my Christmas shopping at long last completed (after 4 months of scavenging the globe!) and in the post, I had nothing to do this afternoon. Nada! So I got my book out - a book about a ballerina to compensate for the fact that this'll be the first year in my memory that has not included some version of the Nutcracker or another - and read for hours. Then I went for a wander, picked up a rice basket as a favor to Chris, who couldn't get one on account of the ATM failure on the day of his departure, and stumbled upon the evening's chants at the local wats. All the monks (or at least large numbers of them) gather together in the main hall and chant these long songs and never seem to take a breath. It's very beautiful and soothing. I didn't want to take any pictures of the monks themselves, so I just sat and took video of the courtyard with the chants (hopefully) filtering into the tiny microphone on my camera. Fingers crossed it works, because I'd love you guys to hear it.
Then I wandered past the cooking school, which smelled heavenly, and signed up for an all day cook-stravagaza on Saturday. We'll go to the market in the morning and then from 11 on we'll be cooking and eating until 5 or so. Delicious. And I already have my cookbook to start studying before I get there...and I'll get to bring it home so I can make tasty Lao food for myself - and maybe a lucky few of you guys too! Mmmmm...laap chicken...
So now, as I look forward to that, I have nothing to do with my night but upload some more pictures from my camera, go have dinner and a glass of French wine by the Mekong, and maybe continue my quest for a perfect dessert. There are lots of French bakeries around, and I've tried several, but have yet to find something that hits the spot. Last night I got a piece of cake that looked tasty but when I got it, it became clear that it had been sitting there for days - it was like a crouton! Luckily they switched it for me, but it kills the mood. :) I live a really hard life...

Yay!

Well, we had a mini-crisis yesterday/this morning that seems to have resoved itself pretty much to my satisfaction. Last night I went to take money out of the ATM, only to find that every ATM and land line in Luang Prabang was down. So no money, which meant none of the last couple items on my Christmas list got bought or mailed. Fortunately within the past hour or so they finally got the system back up, but for a short time I was wondering how long I could make 30 bucks last and hoping that figure was greater than the number of days a phone system can be down in Laos. So the good news is that I am now liquid again and can finish my shopping, the bad news is the odds of everything arriving in time for Christmas have gone down by a day.
The real good news of the day, though, is on the volunteering front. I went to Big Brother Mouse this morning and practiced conversational English with a college student named Sansuri. He wants to be a tour guide for hill tribe treks, and is Hmong himself, so I had him tell me all about Hmong life and customs, which was not only great practice for him, but really cool for me. He told me about burial rituals and how boys and girls meet and marry and how people worship. The coolest thing he told me was how when a person dies, an expert must play the drums in a very old pattern that gives the soul directions to eternal rest. If the drummer screws up, the deceased will come back to haunt his dreams until the family has gathered enough of the currency of the spirit world (not sure exactly what). When they've gathered enough, the drummer has to burn it as an offering and then the deceased can buy a ride from a spirit that already knows the way. Cool, huh? What a great opportunity for me to get the real scoop. I almost feel like I got the better end of this volunteer excursion. Needless to say, I'll be back for the rest of the week.
Other than chill at Big Brother Mouse, I plan to take a cooking class, ride some elephants, and schedule out my trip back into the wilds of Thailand (aka Bangkok). I think I'm going to take the slow boat up to the northern border and then take a bus to Bangkok from there. The slow boats are on their way out now, so I'd like to do it before they no longer exist. It'll be two days of cold sitting on the deck of boat, but the opportunity of a lifetime to see the Lao countryside.

Lao Landscape and Volunteering

Well, having a free day to wander in Luong Prabang has me much more optimistic about the possibility of volunteering without having some packaged "experience" thrown at me at the same time. I managed to track down the booklet for the Stay Another Day group, which supports what it calls "destination-friendly" tourism (ways to make sure the local population benefits from the tourist traffic and doesn't get forced into losing their culture in the process). They've got a number of awesome groups in the booklet including MyLibrary, which is a resource center for people wanting to learn computer skills, English, and just about anything else, and Big Brother Mouse, which encourages literacy in Laos by distributing fun but informative books to kids and adults. Both of them always need people to stop by and practice English with locals by just sitting and chatting, and at MyLibrary I can teach people basic computer skills, too. There's also a restaurant that supports an orphanage, so when their book swap opens tomorrow I'll ask the staff if the orphanage needs any help, too. So tomorrow morning after my last pre-Christmas run to the post office, I'll be going to Big Brother Mouse to work on English practice, and from there I'll visit the other two places and see what they need, too. Yay!

So yesterday I didn't really get a chance to wax rhapsodic about the Lao landscape, but it really is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. The bus ride went through these incredibly steep mountains, so steep that the road has to do switchbacks, something usually reserved for the steepest of on-foot hiking! So as we zig-zagged up the side of each mountain we had plenty of chances to see the hills and waterfalls and jungles, as well as the villages that set up along the road. Even in the dry season, when lush emerald green has mellowed to a shade closer to yellowish-green, it still looks so teeming with life up there. There are also these things that look a little bit like Louisiana palmetto grass, but even taller. Some are twice as high as a grown man, and topped with these big silvery brushes tinged with purple. They're really beautiful...I managed to catch a couple pictures from the moving bus, so I hope they do the scene justice.

This also just so happens to be Hmong New Year, which is the time of year when all the youngsters break out their traditional brightly colored dresses (covered with jingling coins and beads), and go out looking for their future spouses. The boys, who are still school age, go visit the neighboring villages and get to know the girls by starting ball-games with them. When a boy finds a girl intriguing, they'll stand and toss a ball back and forth and chat for a while. I saw a bunch of these ball games as we drove by and didn't know what they were until Chris (who had been hiking in the Plain of Jars for the past few days and got the full lowdown from his guide) explained it. Very cool. So who knows, maybe I saw the blossoming of young romance before my very eyes and didn't even know it!

Mellow day with surprise ending

I got up extra early this morning and managed to catch the first bus out of town for Luang Prabang - with no people on it! It was so comfortable and awesome. I reclined both seats in my row back and had a most luxurious nap. The scenery was really beautiful, made even better by not having to stop next to an overheating bus every 20 minutes. I'll write more on that later because of the surprise ending of the day.
I'm wandering around L.P. once I arrive with this Korean girl Hui that I met on the tuk-tuk from the bus station, looking for a cheap place to stay (found one: it's a pit but the price is right - 50,000 kip! Less than $5!), when who should walk up and say hi but Chris! He's in L.P. for one night before taking the boat upriver for some hiking. So we're going to go grab dinner at 7:30 and I only have a few minutes, but overall it's been a cool, relaxing day!

Voluntourism: a rant

It appears I'm back to winging it with no plan. Not entirely a bad thing, but really not what I was hoping for. I was hoping that if I did enough research I'd find a few leads on places that might need some help of whatever type I can give. Unfortunately, volunteer opportunities overseas (at least the ones you can find online) come in the form of "volun-tours." I have no problem with this, but it's just not what I want. I don't want the extra day of hiking to an "undiscovered" ethnic minority village to participate in staged encounters. I don't want the group dinner at a local restaurant that serves local food and a serviceable pizza. And I definitely don't want to pay a third party all kinds of money to set it up for me. All I want to do is live in town on my own for a while and be helpful to somebody in some fashion.

It's not that I have a problem with that type of thing. If I wasn't already in the country and didn't already kind of know my way around enough to get by, it would be great. If the thousands of dollars they ask for wouldn't go a lot further if "Voluntours Inc." or whoever didn't first take a cut out of it for operating costs and profit, I would have no problem with it. But as it is, I have no interest in paying any for-profit entity over a thousand dollars for the opportunity to play with kids in an orphanage.

So the new plan is I'm going to buy a bus ticket back to Luong Prabang today, probably head back there sometime tomorrow (a loooooooong ride. Not looking forward to it so much, but LP is a great town), and start out by going to play with elephants for a couple of days. When I get back, I'll drop in on a school after hours and ask an administrator if that school (or any others that he/she knows of) could use a hand in their English department tutoring kids, correcting student exercises, practicing conversation, or whatever else. Hopefully that'll give me a lead or two to go on, and I'll get at least a couple days of being helpful out of it.

Fingers crossed it all works out. If all else fails and I get sick of it all, I can always push my flight ahead a few days or just kick around and explore Bangkok for a week...if I forgive them for the airport fiasco and they're on their best behavior between now and then :)

Vientienne and Letdown

Today was kind of a lame-o day. Not because it wasn't good, but because it's back to being on my own. At least I had kind of a slow transition out of having company. Josh left yesterday at the crack of dawn, but his former roommate Chris was still around. Both of us were sad to see Josh go, and when we met up for dinner we realized that his departure had led us both to think, "well, maybe it's time to start wrapping up the bumming around and go back to real life and friends and work and all those things we miss about where he's going back to."
Then we paused for a moment and realized that we were sitting on the banks of the Mekong eating prawns the size of lobsters. Our life rules.
But today is another story. I went to submit my visa application for China and then came back for one last lunch with Chris before he heads up north to some of the more remote areas. Turns out he randomly ran into some people he went trekking with in Mongolia on the street last night, so we met them for lunch at this great little cafe. Then we had to head back into the main part of town so he could catch his bus and I was on my own...
I was psyched to do my research on what I was going to do with the upcoming two weeks and change I have here, but the net was down all over town, so I was thwarted in that. That left me with very little to do but kill time and realize I was on my own again. I'm reading a great book, which helped to pass the time a bit. It's called Out of the Loop by Morgan McFinn, a guy who scrapped it all to move to Thailand. He's me plus facial hair and hedonism, so it'll give you a good idea of my state of mind when I was back on the 4000 Islands (minus the facial hair and hedonism); I totally recommend it if you can score a copy. But in the end, reading is a solitary pursuit, so it didn't do much to improve me mood. Even a $5 facial didn't help much.
But now here I am at the net cafe, uploading pics and doing some research, so hopefully I'll get myself out of the holding pattern and get my solitary rambler joi de vivre back.
If not, I'll drown my sorrows in more prawns and a $5 massage. Things could be worse.

The news since last substantive post

Hi guys,
I know I've been a bit remiss in keeping things updated lately, so I thought I'd give you the story on Lao. When last I posted, we were in Luang Prabang, up in the northern part of Laos. It's a hopping place, but very clearly geared toward tourism. We ate some awesome street food and shopped in the night market and otherwise touristed it up. We woke up early on our last day in town to see the daily march of the monks around town to collect alms from the citizens. The monks walk down the street and kneeling citizens place food in their baskets for them to eat that day (they donate any extra to needy kids who bring baskets for their families). Unfortunately it's turned into kind of a camera-snapping nightmare as opposed to a form of religious devotion. There were more tourists than locals in some spots, and a lot of them were pretty vulgar, pushing their cameras right up in the monks' faces and joining the observance while obviously having failed to read the signs posted all over town that gave the procedure for doing so respectfully. It kind of grossed me out, and I headed back to the hotel room so I wouldn't have to be part of the scene.
We then took a surprisingly long but really scenic bus ride to Vien Viang, which was quite a scene. The place is a backpacker mecca. And by "backpacker" I mean "year-round MTV spring breakers." Every restaurant in town had an episode of Friends on the bigscreen TV, which was kind of funny. We stayed at this cute little guesthouse with the absolute sweetest family running it. We were walking down the alley where the guesthouse was, and didn't see the sign so we walked right by, and they start calling out to us "do you have a booking? Are you Josh?" When we replied that we were, they were so excited. The younger sister of the owner in particular was adorable, and every time we passed by she's say, "hi, Josh!" even if it was just me by myself. If you're ever in town, stay at Le Jardin Organique. They're great people.
We took a tour that included caving and tubing, which was really awesome. The whole area is filled with these limestone mountains, which over the years have been worn away and have a network of caves in them filled with all kinds of crazy stalactites and stalagmites (spelling?). Uncle Rick, you'd have gone nuts in there. The highlight was a cave we had to go into while floating on inner tubes. There was no light, and we only had one flashlight between us and our guide, so the place was totally dark. We would occasionally get out of the tubes and crawl through these low, narrow passages. Just when we thought our guide must surely be taking us to the end of the world, we'd find ourselves in these huge chambers filled with crystals (and sometimes also guano...but did I mention sparkly crystals?). It was really cool. At one point our one flashlight got a bit iffy, so we were wandering around old-school style with candles! What a blast!
We then headed off on our tubing adventure, which would have been awesome...if I was 10 years younger. There were an assortment of bars that you could tube up to, with rope swings, water slides, and the like, which would have been fantastic were it not for the hordes of heavily intoxicated college kids running around going "woooooo!!!! Laos rules! Wooooo!" and dancing around in their skimpy bathing suits (Lao manners really require everybody to be covered from shoulders to knees) to the sound of blaring speakers. All I could think of was "we have just ruined this stretch of river for anyone who actually lives here." And also "I really want to go on that 5-story waterslide but I'm too terrified..."
Once we got out of range of the rather crass spring-breaker ambience it was gorgeous, though. The view was incredible, with the mountains rising up at these crazily steep angles from the river. By the end I was frozen through and ready to be done - next time I'll take a kayak - but what a relaxing way to spend a day.
Now I'm in Vientienne, the capital of Laos, which is a very chill town and has the benefit of seeming to go about its business without caring too much about the tourists (the moto-rickshaw drivers here often have to be awakened from their naps to take you places - a far cry from being accosted like in other places!). I'll be here a few days, soaking up the awesome street food and bakeries left over from the French colonial era while I wait for my Chinese visa to come through. Not a bad way to wait! Josh has headed back to the States and the real world, but Chris will still be in Vientienne for another day or so before he heads back up north to go trekking to visit some hill tribes. I'm not sure what I'll be doing yet, but I do know I've extended my stay here, so I'm not flying out of Thailand until New Year's Eve. That gives me tons of time to find a project to volunteer on, play with some elephants, and heavens knows what else. Yay!

Sad news today

I just got word that my great uncle Dirck, a great traveller himself, just passed away this weekend. Even though he has lived in the UK ever since I can remember, he and my great aunt Margaret have always been wonderfully kind to me, and have been avid followers of this blog, and it's a very sad surprise to hear that he's left us. It'll be really tough to be half a world away for the funeral. I'm thinking of you, Aunt Margaret, with all my heart.
Any other news seems kind of inconsequential aside from that, but all is still well in Lao and I'll check in again from Vientienne in the next couple days.

Onward

Laos continues to be awesome. Yesterday we looked at all the temples in town, and today we went to one of the most picturesque waterfalls I've ever seen. The water is greenish, and it cascades over these limestone (?) pools through a jungle that's many shades of brilliant green. It's very hard to describe, and I wish I could put a photo up to show you, but Lao connections are slow enough that uploading one pic could take hours... The waterfall has elephants that live/work nearby, and we bumped into them and their mahouts on the way up to the entrance. They're huge up close, and even with their lumbering hugeness, there's a kind of grace about them. It's certainly strengthened my resolve to do the cheesy "be a mahout for a weekend" camp where you spend a day shadowing a mahout (elephant driver/caretaker), helping him care for his elephant and learning how to ride it. It's a total tourist trap but it looks way too cool to resist.
We've just spent the evening wandering around the night market, which has been really cool. It's got some of the tastiest street food I've run into so far in my travels. One word: meat on a stick. Chris got a whole fish, but I stuck to chicken, which was delicious. And for a buck and change, you can't go wrong. Then we did a little shopping, but I'm starting to feel guilty about the 20+ kilos of stuff I'm sending Josh home with, so I've got to curb my enthusiasm a bit.
Tomorrow we're going to Vang Vien (I'm sure I'm misspelling that). We'll take a bus in the morning and hopefully arrive in the heat of the day. What passes for a cold front has been hovering over Luang Prabang for the past couple days, so it's been just a bit too cool for swimming, but I'm hoping for a scorcher because the main attraction of Vang Vien is riding down the Mekong in an inner tube. Sounds like a very relaxing way to spend an afternoon, so fingers crossed for fair weather (I know, I know, you New Englanders hate me right now...)

Luang Prabang

Alas, all good things must come to an end. We've left the islands for Luang Prabang, a town in northern Laos that has way more tourist infrastructure than the islands (read: electricity around the clock and hot water). We flew because with Josh only being here two weeks, we didn't want to spend tons of time sitting on busses. So we got up this morning, chartered a minibus to take us to Pakse airport a few hours away, and along the way we crossed the Mekong on a ferry to have a look at an old Khmer temple complex called Wat Phu, which I think is Khmer for "Lots of Stairs to a Spectacular View." It was straight up a hill through frangipani trees (smelled heavenly; I'm on a search for frangipani perfume before I leave here), and when we reached the top there wasn't so much in the way of ruins left, but what a view over the Mekong valley. Pretty spectacular. Then it was off to the airport. These guys certainly travel in style...private bus, planes...a far cry from my packed night trains in India, that's for sure.
Luang Prabang promises to be pretty awesome. There's a fantastic little market that is, as Josh says, "catnip for westerners." I'll be doing some serious shopping there, that's for sure. Our guesthouse is right across from Big Brother Mouse, which is a literacy center where volunteers can read stories to kids who are learning English, so I plan on spending some time there while we're here. I've also stumbled upon a book full of environmentally and culturally responsible tours and stores, so I'll be looking into what I can do with that, too. I think I'm definitely going to stay a couple extra weeks, maybe even until New Years. As much as I've been having a great time with Chris and Josh, I totally abdicated my role as planner to them on this leg of my trip so I'm finding there's stuff we skipped that I would have liked to do and stuff I would have done differently if I'd been on my own. Luckily I have those two weeks of cushion time built into my schedule so I can go back and do it all! The benefit of their company and good taste in food and accommodations for the first go 'round, and the benefit of complete independence on the second! Perfect!

Laos is paradise

Oh my god, guys. I'm staying in Don Khon, an island in southern Laos that's smack in the middle of the Mekong. There is a waterfall a kilometer away. The village surrounding us has all these rice paddies full of water buffalo and happy children at play. And cute puppies come running up to greet you and give you kisses on the road (cutest experience ever). The restaurant attached to our guesthouse is unbelievable, with this unbelievably flavorful Lao food, and we've got a bungalow that's on stilts up over the river that has hammocks on the balcony and faces the sunset. I never want to leave. It's so peaceful and restful. Not a tout in sight, and the people are amazingly friendly and laid back. It's fantastic here. Everybody should come to Laos. Well, not everybody because then it wouldn't be so peaceful and wonderful.
The downside to peaceful and wonderful is that it's a 45 minute walk to get to a net cafe, so you won't be hearing from me that much for a while. Don't panic. All is well. All is very well, I'm just off the grid. As soon as I get someplace with a faster connection I'll post all the amazing photos I've been taking of Lao and Cambodia. I love Southeast Asia, and when the guys leave, I'm seriously contemplating using my 2 weeks of cushion time to find someplace to volunteer in a school here. I'll let you know what I decide, but in the meantime I'm off to enjoy one of the most amazingly unspoiled places I've ever seen.

Angkor and food adventures

So we woke up very, very early this morning and got to Angkor Wat in the dark so we could watch the sun rise over the temple. The place is really cool, and in a great state of preservation. Some of the carvings are practically good as new, which is pretty amazing considering the fact that they're actuall 1000 years old. Really beautiful and impressive. We had a guide and a driver (talk about traveling in style...), and they took us to a whole bunch of other temples. My favorite one was this Tomb Raider-y one that was half collapsed and overgrown, although I must confess that having a guide really cut down on my ability to pretend that I was having a fabulous archaeological adventure...
But the big news of the day is for people who knew me as a kid: I can now call myself an adventurous eater. It's been a big day for the girl who ate peanut butter and apple jelly sandwiches for lunch every day of her primary school career. For lunch today, we asked to go to a kind of locals-only place where they don't pretty up the food for westerners, and they brought us to a great little place where each table was on the floor of a little open air platform bungalow. There were three hammocks to swing in, which we thoroughly enjoyed while our driver ordered his favorites for us. We ended up with wild boar, venison, and roast chicken..."where's the adventure in that?" I hear you asking. Well, the chicken came with, get this: ant sauce. Yes indeed. Red ants fermented in a jar underground with a chunk of fish for three months until it forms a gray paste with little ant parts in it. Guess who tried a little. Me! I ate an ant on purpose! It was surprisingly sour, and I didn't really like it so I didn't put any more of the sauce on the chicken, but hey. I had a bite. Then for dinner tonight we went to a Khmer barbecue, where we had snake (really chewy), crocodile (not as delicious as N'awlins alligators), and kangaroo (decidedly not Cambodian, but still exotic). I am so proud of myself right now. And I think my parents are going to tip over from surprise when they read this...

Safe and sound

Well, first and best news first: my cousin Erin and her husband Seth just welcomed their son Joshua into the world this morning. Congratulations guys!! I can't wait to meet him!!!
Second of all, happy Thanksgiving to everybody. Gorge yourselves on Turkey for me! I had fish and lemongrass, which totally counts right?
Third, as you may have gathered, my land-crossing was relatively uneventful. I managed to connect with a freelance photojournalist (who happened to speak fluent Thai! How lucky am I??) and had been through the border several times before, so it was smooth as silk and we split the cost of a cab to Siem Reap, which beat the heck out of taking a bus. And he is a total character so I had an excellent partner in conversation for the 3-4 hour ride. So life is good. I've arrived safe and well, if a little tired and sniffly. The hotel is gorgeous, dinner with Josh and Chris was excellent, and tomorrow morning we'll be watching the sun rise over Angkor Wat! Life is good again.

Today's plan

Well, it appears that neither prime minister nor protesters seems to have any intention of budging on the matter of the airport, so for the time being, there is no hope of my flying out of there any time soon. So I'm left with the unsavory option of the overland crossing through Poipet, which is notorious for scams and hassles (my favorite two parts of traveling...with my cold, I'm sure that some tout or corrupt visa agent is going to get a taste of my evil twin). It's not dangerous at all, but what a pain in the caboose. It'll take 9-12 hours to get overland to Siem Reap, but it's better than staying cooped up in Thailand for who knows how long.
So here's the plan. Bus to the border station, autorickshaw to the actual border with all the luggage I'd planned to leave at the Bangkok airport, deal with the Scam-bodia border scrum, then get a share taxi (or not shared, but I'm not taking any 15 hour un-airconditioned bus in my current state) to Siem Reap. If all goes well, that should put my arrival around dinnertime tonight, just as the guys get back from their temple tour.
I'll be sure to post to let you know I'm safely arrived.
In other news, the Mumbai bombings broke my heart this morning. How very sad. And scary. I traveled through the train station that got hit several times, and one of the hotels is right around the corner from where I stayed...I hate terrorists...

Update on the current situation

Ok, troops, here's the latest.
The border with Cambodia closes at 5PM today, so by the time I make the 4 hour trip to the border, it'll be closed and I'll have to sleep on the frontier. Not exactly ideal, obviously. So tonight I'll stay in the nice hotel Thai Airways has put me up in, and if by tomorrow morning the airport has not been reopened, I'll make the crossing overland.
Needless to say, the sooner I get out of Bangkok, the better, both in terms of avoiding any unrest and in terms of getting to see friendly faces from home. I have to say, though, I'm kind of relishing being caught up in world events. If I didn't have anyplace to be, I'd really be enjoying this, ironically enough. It's a pretty low-risk insurrection, which is the best kind...
But for now, I'm safe and well, except for the fact that I think my second bout with the rhinovirus is about to start...most inconvenient.

I'm OK, don't panic

Good morning all. I'm sure you have turned on CNN by now and seen that the Bangkok airport has been occupied by antigovernment demonstrations, and has been shut down. I was on one of the last flights that was allowed to land, and we were stuck on the tarmac for 4 hours (in a plane load of middle schoolers....so much noise, so little space!). They finally let us out and are putting us up in a hotel overnight until they can figure out what to do. But have no fears. Bangkok itself is totally stable, there's no rioting in the streets, and there was no time when I was not completely safe.
Gotta figure out how the heck I'm going to get to Cambodia...

Health recovered, arrived in Delhi

I was feeling much better yesterday, so it was an epic shop-fest (you thought you were the only ones Christmas shopping right now?). I got up, ran around town, made up a dance class, ran around, again until my second makeup class, then ran around again until it was time to go. But it was terribly productive. I have a giant bag of junk that poor Josh will have to bring back from Thailand with him after our swing through S.E. Asia. And it's heavy, too...
I actually ate yesterday, and nothing horrible happened, so I take that to mean that I'm better. I had this awesome soup at this cute little Tibetan place that was so nice that I went back for dinner and had these Tibetan dumplings known as momos for dinner. Tasty.
The big thing yesterday was my departure from my temporary family at Saraswati, which was really sad. My teacher sent me off with a set of bangles that jingle when I move...and they're green! How did he know? They'd all been so great to me, especially looking out for me when I was sick and miserable. It was like staying with old friends, so it was tough to say so-long. Except for the dog. He sent me off in the same fashion he welcomed me - fangs bared. But even with Big Mean Leo sending me off with a snarl, I'll carry lots of fond memories of Pushkar.
But not of the bus. I got stuck in a seater bus for the ride to Delhi, which is not ideal, but I figured how bad can it be? Apparently pretty lame, because the guy in front of me reclined so much his head was practically in my lap, and I had nowhere to go because I was the back of the bus...and there was no place to put my feet because some dude was sleeping in the aisle. I wish I was him, he looked a lot more comfortable. But I made it, I survived, and I got to my hotel in the backpacker ghetto of Paharganj in time to have a shower and a nap before I head for the Lao embassy...as soon as I figure out how to get there...it's really far and there's no subway, so I have to ask around...wish me luck!

Still recovering

Well, no more hurling, thank heavens, but I'm still not feeling my best. I got up feeling great this morning and wandered out into town to do a little more shopping. I was starving, so I made the error of eating breakfast. All downhill from there, I've been nauseous ever since. I tried to make up the dance classes I missed yesterday, and I was learning this really fun Bollywood routine, but my stomach kept lurching and we had to call it quits. Sad :(
So tomorrow night I head for Delhi. I was hoping to do a couple hours of camel trekking tomorrow (obviously I've ditched the notion of going overnight tonight), but at this rate even that may be out of the question. Looks like I'll have to lie low another day and let my antibiotics work their magic. But on the up side, this has given me the chance to read an interesting book that claims Jesus spent time in India as a youth, survived his crucifiction, and returned to be entombed in Kashmir somewhere. It's an intriguing premise, but the scholarship is totally shoddy so even if there's any truth to any of it, the author sabotages himself. It's getting kind of hilarious as the book wears on...

Lucky streak over

Ugggggggggh.
I've been really really lucky so far in all my travels that I haven't really had much in the way of tummy trouble, but it couldn't last forever. Last night was an epic hurl-fest lasting from about midnight until 7AM. Still not feeling great, but I'm well enough to get out and post to say I survived. So unless I have a miraculous recovery, looks like I'll be missing my last day of dance classes and possibly even the camel trek I'd hoped to fit in tomorrow. Alas. But for someone whose immune system is as lame as mine, the fact that I haven't been sick like this all the time is no small feat, and I can't complain too much.

Kathak dancing...

Um...I am apparently a really bad dancer. Good thing my teacher has a good sense of humor about it. :) It's one of those "good habits in ballet equals bad habit in other dance forms" things. Also the use of joints I didn't realize actually moved that way. My teacher can make his hands undulate like they've got no bones, and I've totally got flippers for hands, so I look like I'm trying one-handed clapping or something when I try to do the same thing (alas, it's one of the most common steps in this form of dance). But he's very patient, and he's young enough that he doesn't take his own classes too seriously, so we laugh about it a lot (although my cluelessness can only be fun for so long. And he's stuck with me 3 hours a day for two more days!).
I got my "Pushkar Passport" today, which is when some guy shakes you down for a "charitable donation" for doing puja at the lakeside. It happens to everybody, and most travel accounts say people will bug you until you do it, so I figured I'd just suck it up and get it over with (you get a little string around your wrist that says you've done it). I also have a red smudge on my forehead that I'll have to get someone to take a picture of.
I also got to wander around the lake. I walked past the place where Gandhi's ashes were scattered, which is pretty special. He was such an amazing and inspiring figure, it's nice to share a part of that, even a small one.
Otherwise an uneventful day. More shopping. More dancing. I may hit the post office. Oh! The dog! I almost forgot! One of my teacher's brothers and his wife have this giant scary German Shepherd. He is easily up to my elbow. Maybe even bigger. Anyway, he isn't used to too many visitors, so he is really territorial. He's fine when his owners are around, but yesterday when they weren't around, I had to walk past him to get from my room to the stairs, and he growled, then jumped up and took a snap at me! Jeeez! So now I'm scared of him. But apparently he responds to commands in Spanish, because I talked to the wife (who is Spanish) about it and it worked earlier today. Growl but I told him to to sit and stay in my now-limited Espanol, so no biting. But I'm still totally scared.

Good pick, guys!

Well done guys. Pushkar is amazing.
Last night the guys from the Saraswati school came to pick me up - at 2 in the morning - from the train station. They're brothers, and they're really funny, so I'm looking forward to taking classes with them. My room is quite nice, as well. Great air because it's off a little balcony. I got up this morning, and on the way down to score myself some breakfast I hit this awesome shopping street and ended up buying a silk skirt for myself, and a couple really fun souveneers for people back home. Totally not on purpose, but it was all such great stuff I couldn't resist.
Then I hit the Rainbow rooftop restaurant, which is awesome. It has a great view over "Lake" Puskar. It's really a pond, but it's so beautiful. There are stepped ghats going down to the water all around, with crumbling architectural treasures from several different eras popping up behind them. Beyond that are the mountains. An incredible view. And...drumroll, they have for real pancakes. Not crepes. An actual bread-like, honest to goodness, break out the maple pancake. It had honey on it, but it was still quite possibly the most delicious thing ever because I've been craving one forever. They've also got this great whipped fresh-squeezed OJ which, after weeks of what I've taken to calling "faux-J" was the best thing ever. I plan to eat 3 meals a day there and have a glass of OJ with each so I can kick this cough that's settling into my lungs.

Yesterday was pretty fantastic too, overall. I forgot to mention the sights on the way to the train station (in the AM when I bought my ticket): a work elephant walking down the street and a parade, complete with uniformed marching band, on the way to a temple! Sweet!
Then all the stuff I mentioned yesterday, and a trip to the nature walk, which was the best thing about Agra besides the Taj itself. There was practically nobody there, except young Indian lovebirds looking for a place to hold hands without some older person disapproving. Really cute. Anyway, I found a place with a great view of the Taj complex (it looks like a far-away fairy tale city from there), and wrote out some postcards in complete peace and solitude. Then, I pretended I hadn't understood the guard's instructions that the forest path was off-limits (hey, there was no sign saying I shouldn't go...I thought you meant wandering into the forest off the path, officer...). I wandered off into the woods on the old stone path, and what should greet me but a wild peacock! So cool! By the time I got my camera out his less-ornate girlfriend had showed up, but I didn't get a clear shot of the spectacularly plumed male. After a bit of observing they headed into the forest and I kept walking, only to stumble upon a grazing deer, the size of which blew me away. My camera, of course, had run out of batteries, and as I fumbled for more, what should walk out of the woods but this strange water-buffalo-deer creature unlike anything I'd ever seen before. Of course, all my batteries were dead - my charger is no longer functioning properly from too much rough treatment - so I didn't get a photo of either one of them, but it was better than a wildlife safari out there.
The train was another Indian style adventure. I shared my compartment (ticketed for six) with over 15 people, all but one of whom were loud obnoxious young men with a penchant for smoking cigarettes under the no-smoking sign, until the very classy and offended older lady sitting next to me and I finally found the conductor and made a stink about it. Then they kicked all of our un-ticketed "guests" back to the unreserved seating coach where they should have been all along and the rest of the trip was uneventful...except for the part when I think we might have hit a person with the train. I couldn't really understand what was going on, but from what I gathered, someone was trying to cross the track and didn't quite make it, but maybe that was just a rumor because we were only delayed by 10 minutes...
Anyway, off to my dance class at 3PM!

Pushkar accomplished!

So I have called into Pushkar and arranged a dance intensive complete with staying in-house at the studio/ashram. I'm not sure how many hours of class I'll be taking a day, but I'll figure that out when I get there.
So now I'm going to make the most of what remains of my time here in Agra. So far so good. I took a walk around the fort and sat under a shady tree for a while, then took a ride on a rickshaw past Victoria gardens, which is lovely, and then visited a totally non-touristed mosque right next to the West Gate of the Taj. Now I'm going to grab a jalebi (mmmm...sugar) and head down to the riverside to sit and stare at the Taj until it's time to go. Perfecto.

And the winner is....

Pushkar! Thank you guys from absolving me of responsibility for myself! Now all that remains is to call and make sure that the teacher is available for the days I'll be there and then get a train ticket or bus ticket (uggggh, definitely a last resort) to get myself there. Fingers crossed!

29 at the Taj

Ok, I am now a breath away from 30. Let us never speak of this again, it grosses me out.
But regardless of that, it's been a good day. I got up this morning and went straight to the Taj, which was, of course, incredible. There's a reason it gets the attention it does, and that's because it's spectacular. It almost glows. And I thought it was all white, but it isn't. The marble is inlaid with all kinds of precious and semiprecious stones, and it's unbelievable. The mausoleum of Mumtaz Mahal is exquisitely detailed and so delicate. It's definitely a tribute to Shah Jehan's affection for her. (note: in the picture I'm looking a little drenched from jumping out of the shower and into the Taj, but I wanted to show off the outfit Dan and Sonia gave me - you guys are the best! I love it!)
I also saw the palaces inside the fort, which are pretty spectacular. A lot of it is shut down because of ongoing restoration and excavation, and I'd have given my right arm to get into a few places that were locked up, but what was open was amazing. Theses sultans really had fantastic taste. So much white marble and red sandstone...the marble in particular is perfect for this climate because it's cool even when the heat is raging. There are fountains and green lawns everywhere. Tell you what, I could definitely live like that...provided, of course, that I didn't have to live locked up in the (I kid you not) basement harem all my life. My favorite spot at the forts is definitely the prison tower of Shah Jehan. Apparently his son took the throne from him shortly after the completion of the Taj Mahal and locked him away in this tower until his death some years later. But what a poetic place to be locked up. It's a beautiful open area of white marble, with a wraparound balcony that looks out over the river, and in the distance he could see his wife's tomb, where he would later be buried as well. It's almost like being suspended in the air.
I am hoping that after my big night tonight I can get some photos uploaded. I've realized that I haven't given you guys any pictures since I left Israel. My bad.
Tonight's big: I'm going to try to catch the sunset at the Taj nature trails, then to an actual nice hotel for a fancypants dinner, then a little bit of trinket shopping, then back home to make some phone calls home. All in all a lovely day!

Now you get a say! VOTE! Save me!

Ok, guys, I am paralyzed by indecision. I only have time for one city in Rajasthan. Vote for your favorite option because I am suffering from decision fatigue. Whatever gets the most votes by the morning of the 17th (my time, I have to catch a train), I'll do. So should I go to...

1) Pushkar: not that much to see architecturally speaking, and a bit of a hippie haven, but there's a very high likelihood that I can stay in a musician's community and take intensive dance lessons for a few days and maybe even some cooking classes
or
2) Jaisalmer: exotic Silk Road trading post by the Pakistani border where there is a wealth of architectural treasures and the very high likelihood that I'll be able to take a camel into the Thar desert and camp there overnight, but no dance classes that I know of.

Help me! Vote!

Feeling a little better

Ok, so perhaps my lack of sleep had me overreacting a bit to the hotel situation. It's really not bad as budget rooms go, so I really have nothing to complain about. The hotels with the best Taj views are the budget ones, so I gambled that the good view places might have posher rooms, and I kind of lost, but it's not like I got the ultimate grossest room ever. It's not spotless, but it's got a western-style toilet, and they're looking into why there's no hot water (it's an off time, so the boiler may not be on full blast). Maybe it's not such a tragedy. (check again tomorrow if I've had a freezing AM shower).
And their rooftop restaurant is really nice - great Taj view in daylight. I'm surprised to find that they don't illuminate it at night...hmmmm...if it was in the states, it would be covered in fiber-optic designs and other vulgarities! It's kind of refreshing!
So I went and did a little retail therapy - even buying trinkets for peeps back home makes a girl happy. I also did a little no-intent-to-buy window shopping a la Breakfast at Tiffany's. I'm drooling over these marble tabletops inlaid with semiprecious stones, but they're
a) really expensive
b) humongous
c) super heavy to lug around with me
d) did I mention they're thousands of dollars?
Someday when I'm rich and famous and have a flashy home where something that glittery wouldn't look out of place, I'll come back and get one. Or seven. :)
On the way home I stopped at this little sweets joint. Literally a hole in the wall, I don't think it constitutes an actual "room" in the true sense of the word. Indian sweets are totally foreign to me (aside from my all time favorite gulab jamun and the ever present kheer), so I had this guy recommend something for my overwhelming sweet tooth. He recommended this stuff called...I kid you not...barfi? Burfi? Sounds like barfi. Anyway, as far as I can gather, it's these little squares of milk solids and sugar. It's good, and I am looking forward to taking my little leaf-dish home with me, getting a pot of masala chai on the roof and making the best of my accommodations.
And tomorrow morning I will wake up early and see the Taj change colors as the sun rises...Regardless of anything else, that will make it a beautiful day. I took this trip so that I wouldn't turn 30 and realize I'd failed to have the adventures I dreamed about as a kid. Now, on the last birthday before that tragedy was scheduled to happen, I am doing something about it, and it is the best gift I could give myself. I will savor my chai and the warmth of the morning sun and count my multitude of blessings, including all of you guys reading this blog. Lots of love!

Birthday plans foiled

Sigh...I'm giving up on making plans...nothing in India is as it seems...
So I booked myself a nice AC berth to get from Varanasi to Agra, which I would have really enjoyed...if the AC actually worked, I didn't sweat all night and have to sit in unfiltered, non-circulating air with "snorting guy" who had a cold and rather than blow his nose preferred to snort it all (loudly) back into his head every 10 seconds or so, and "snoring guy" who has deposed my father as the world's loudest snorer. His bone-rattling snores were interrupted only by bursts of flatulence so loud that it awakened even him. A welcome few seconds of respite from the snoring, but with no circulation, it just added to the people stank of the cabin.
I finally arrived in Agra to find that my Taj Mahal view room reservation was actually "well, you can see the Taj from our rooftop restaurant, but your room is dirty, has only a tiny window, and is on the opposite side of the building. I'm currently deciding whether to look around for something better or just say "screw it, it's not worth it." This neighborhood doesn't look too promising for anything nice...I know my expectations were a little inflated, but I was hoping for at least a nicer bathroom. What a bumout.