Flying

Plane etiquette.

So there are a lot of rules to follow while traveling on an airplane.  Some of them stated, some of them common courtesy type things.

For example, they tell you to remain in your seat while the fasten seatbelt sign is illuminated, specifically while the plane is taxiing down the runway.  They do not tell you, but you ought to assume, if you are taking a 6 a.m. flight, you should brush your teeth, use some mouthwash, or do something about that morning breath (some people on the plane just stayed out all night and smelled like booze, which is an improvement over that morning breath).  Both of these rules have been broken in the last few months of my travel.  Ok, I'm just being picky (with reason) about the morning breath.  But I have seen a lot of people lately standing up to attain their luggage from the overhead bins while the plane is still moving.  It's not like having your bag while taxiing is going to make exiting any quicker because everyone else who has to get their bags is going to block you in.

This brings me to another point of flying etiquette (which they clearly state): use caution while opening the overhead bins, as luggage may have shifted during the flight. You hear that one enough that you ought to expect something to come tumbling out.  But I suppose as it rarely happens, people let their guard down, or their bags if you will.  And one hasty man let his bag down right into my lap.  I was fortunate it was not my head because it was unpleasant enough having his bag of bricks (or whatever weighty substance) bounce off my shoulder.

Specific to budget traveling (or South West, or any other airline that does not assign seats): Nobody likes to sit bitch on the plane, but someone is going to have to crawl in between you who rushed ahead to get the good seats.  So it would be nice if, when you let this traveler (usually me), into the middle seat you don't get huffy and upset that it takes me a couple minutes to organize myself and stow my bag at my feet, all within the 2'x2' box that is the allotted space on a budget flight.

Also, I have a query.  Is it important to actually turn off your electronics during take off and landing, because sometimes I forget to switch my iPad into airplane mode, and I've never fully powered it down.  Also, the guy next to me blatantly broke that rule by first acquiescing the flight attendant's request to turn off his mp3 player, then turning it right back on as soon as each flight attendant finished their sweep.

So, this is my entry of a square's travel perspective.  Of course I am a seasoned traveler who would never commit such a heinous faux pas while flying (except that I spilled my coffee on my neighbor's seat as I was clambering to get into mine...I was a good traveler and wiped it up with my own scarf [mostly because she was glaring and refusing to sit back down, but I still did it]). But I am glad to report that my budget traveling is over for a while, and I only have 5 more flights to complete this tour of the world! (Actually a fair number of flights, as there are just two more stops via plane).

Braga to Praha.

Prague was the beautiful old city full of magnificent architecture that you would expect.  I toured the castle, which came to life for me much more easily having read Ken Follet's novels about 13th century life in cathedrals/castles.  The cathedral there is both the oldest and newest in Prague.  It was started in the 900s and was not finished until the early 1900s.  I also toured the city where the guide spouted all sorts of fun facts at top speed. The two things I remember: Hugo Boss and BMW employed slave labor by the Jews during WWII, and Hugo Boss designed the nazi uniform.  Ironically enough, there is a giant Hugo Boss store in the middle of the Jewish quarter (among stores like Gucci, Prada, and the other really expensive brands I don't even bother to know). The other thing is that the Czech people have a fascinating, tragic history that leaves many without a solid sense of country identity.  For example, my tour guide's mother in law has lived in 9 different countries during her 90 some years of life. She has never moved!  Wow!  Talk about disruption!

In Prague I had my first official couch surfing experience (couch surfing being a network of people who offer couches in their home for travelers coming through to see life with a local).  It was a mediocre start.  Now, I am a shy person, but I learned through my somewhat emotionally difficult semester abroad that you need to push past that shyness to truly see, learn and enjoy another culture. However, one shy person can only carry a conversation so far. I tried starting many conversations with my host, but I could only ever manage short answers.  She was always smiling, but she never drew out her answer or tried to carry the conversation further.  True english was not her first language, I sympathize with her in her possible discomfort, but I could only do so much.  In the end I was in bed by 9:00 both nights.

My struggles were not limited to conversation with my host.  I was also defeated by her Ikea shower.  It was electronic, controlled by a touch screen and a number of confusing dials.  It took about 5 minutes to even turn the shower on, but I managed.  Very quickly it started to get hot. As it continued to get hotter by the minute I lathered up with shampoo and body wash.  By the time I was ready to rinse I could barely get under the water. I figured out how to switch the language to English, but there was still no clear way to turn down the temperature. In the end I splashed enough soap off of my body to exit the shower, but could not stand to scald my scalp. Scorched and defeated I rinsed my head in the sink.  Damn you Ikea!

And finally, Prague defeated me financially.  I carefully calculated how much money to take out at the ATM to buy a beer and a bus ticket to Vienna. But alas, my math skills have gone down hill since the 8th grade and it turns out I carefully miscalculated by about 20 cents. It was not a huge loss, I just had to use my credit card instead of cash, but the Czech Republic is not on the Euro, so now I had essentially $25 that would have to be spent in the next hour.  There could be worse dilemmas, but still, an austerity travel plan is not forgiving to these little mishaps. In the end I bought a bunch of groceries so my spending was not frivolous.  Now I just have to carry all this extra weight from place to place. I am happily in Vienna and back on the Euro...for a few days.

Waschbär...Ausgetsichnet!

Farewell to Munchen (Munich). My stay in Bavaria was exceptional, and also educational.  While traveling in Bali, I made friend from Munich.  She invited me to come stay once I got to Europe, so I did, and I gained a great deal of insight spending several nights with her and her roommates.  I enjoyed my stay very much because I learned a lot through casual conversation about German life and it also reminded me of home, just chatting and laughing with friends over dinner.

Some things I learned about Bavaria:

Life is very structured and punctual. First of all, no one j-walks (I have a feeling this term is politically incorrect, so I apologize if it is and someone is offended).  There could be a huge gap in traffic, only one car far away, even, and everyone still stands there and waits for the walk signal.  An opposite from life in Asia, but even for life in America that was strange.  Also, I caught the bus from Munich to Prague and it was scheduled to leave at 5 p.m. At 16:58 the bus driver turned on the engine and as soon as the clock turned to 17:00 he put the bus in reverse.  Good on Germany, structure is nice.

They really like good beer.  So first of all, Oktoberfest is Munich specific (not an all over Germany event).  When the prince of Bavaria married the princess of somewhere (Austria?), he bought her a field and there they had a two week party with free beer for everyone and horse races. 200 years later the beer is not free and they've done away with the horse races, but the population jumps from ~1.5 million to almost 8 million for this world famous beer fest.  

Also about beer.  It was originally regulated by law that brewers could only use three ingredients, which is why it is so delicious and pure.  Its no longer law, but the Bavarians are proud, so they still brew their beer in the same pure fashion.  

More about beer.  Bavaria has had two beer revolutions. The first one was when the king tried to raise the price of beer (hundreds of years ago?), and the Bavarians set fire to the beer halls and let the king know, that is the one thing you cannot mess with.  More recently (1995?) a man who lived next to a beer hall complained to a lawyer that it was too noisy too late.  Since beer halls serve food they should have to stop serving and close by 10 p.m. The lawyer somehow convinced congress to pass this law but again the Bavarians revolted, protesting in the streets, and the law was repealed.  Such a beautiful story of unity among citizens of Bavaria.

On drinking today. Beer is part of the culture, kids can have a glass with dinner, it's normal. My friend was a girl scout, she joined around the age of 13 or 14.  She joined because all of the events were social drinking activities.  Imagine the scouts of America being based around a drinking culture!  The thought is laughable!

Ah, and the young adult night life.  As an American I just cannot keep up.  We went to the club around midnight, and I was quite proud to remain on my feet until 5 in the morning.  As my friend said (trying to make me feel better that I dragged her away so 'early'), it is almost like something you have to train for, this staying out until 8 in the morning (one club even remains open until 4 in the afternoon...the next day!).

I did a couple tours in Munich, one city tour where I learned a great deal and the guide was hilarious, and a tour of Dachau, a very somber experience.  The tours were fascinating, but I also really enjoyed discussing history with my friends.  I felt like a(n) historian getting an inside perspective on German life after the war.  The war has been over for almost 70 years now, but the Berlin wall came down so recently, it was during their lifetime (not that my friends really remembered anything as they were so young, but they were still around). I'm not sure I can eloquently paraphrase what I learned, but it was even better than reading a historical novel!

And on food. Traditional Bavarian food is pretty meaty, so I didn't go down that road until my last morning.  We got up around one for a post-clubbing, Bavarian-American breakfast of sausage, pretzel, and pancakes.  As with every brunch experience in life, it tasted best in the company of friends (and with a very strong cup of coffee).

OportO. Portugal

Okay, so, I've been in Portugal for well over a week and have been uninspired to write a blog post. I mean, 8 out of ten nights I've been drinking copious amounts of wine, and the other two nights? Hungover of course.  That, so far has been the theme of Portugal...cheap wine, and it has kept my brain from producing the ever loquacious babble you choose to read.

Tonight I have kept my wine consumption to a minimum and am ready to tell you what has been happening in Portugal. In Porto and in Braga. In the tourist world I've been living in.

I arrived to Porto on a Friday afternoon, took an easy metro ride downtown where I was supposed to find my hostel 'just steps away from the Trindade metro stop.' Well, I took a few steps from the metro, and didn't see the hostel. I went back and tried a different direction. Fail. Repeat. Fail. Repeat. Fail. Repeat. Forty-five minutes later (with my giant backpack weighing heavily on my shoulders), I sat down and admitted to myself, 'you are not omniscient, you need to look up directions to where you are going.' After finding a tourist center to point me in the right direction I checked myself into Oporto city hostel and headed straight back out for food (of course). I have enjoyed all of the meals prepared for me along the way so far, and have enjoyed eating out for $3/meal otherwise. But, I was in a state of bliss to find a corner store lined with fresh fruits and vegetables for me to chose what I wanted to prepare.  I bought fresh kale, tomatoes, garlic, onions, a mango the size of my head, and a bottle of wine for $5. 

During dinner I made friends with some other travelers and we shared more wine.  We then went to a tiny bar where we listened to local fado music (Portuguese guitar-y folkish music...not like flamenco) and drank more wine. Next up was a bar downtown, with more drinks (free for me as a reconciliation offer from my friends who tried to play 'guess Richelle's age' and failed miserably...the kindest guess being 30 years). I forgot how late European night life can get, but pulled myself away 'early' sometime after three. The next day I had dedicated to site seeing in Porto.  The sites I saw were the different Ikea patterns of my Porto hostel bed linens. When I was able to get myself going, around dusk, I took a brief tour of the city hoping to come across the river. The lesson regarding my lack of omniscience had not stuck because I tried again to find my way without a map, and eventually had to call it a night without ever glimpsing the water.

My solo travels were over when I met with a Global Village team (some of whom I knew from Guatemala) the next morning. This trip had seventeen of us who came together to help build a Habitat home in Braga. These Global Village teams are very important to the local affiliates as they provide a powerful (although sometimes inept) work force for a week.  I, however, join these builds more for the camaraderie than the making a difference side of things. And such a big team made for an exceptional and rowdy social experience. I was the youngest...there were four of us 'young professionals,' and then there was a jump to the average age of 60.  The age gap was meaningless though. Happy hour every night, with a never ending flow of cheap wine, helped solidify friendships like the cement we threw at the house, and dinners were always long, loud and full of laughter.

The work we did during the week was masonry. The basic structure of the house was already up. The bricks were laid and some walls had different layers of cement on them.  Our jobs were to mix cement and finish the walls inside and out.  It was actually quite fun work.  There was a certain 'zen' quality to cement mixing, and the next step was to throw the cement onto the wall with a trowel.  You could throw mud all day!  It was a blast, and then more zen finishing work as you smoothed the cement layers flat.  The mason in charge was very kind and very funny.  He was a perfectionist, and would always run over saying 'no, no, no!' and show you how to do the job just a little bit differently, babbling away in Portuguese (which is not close enough to Spanish for me to really understand anything). It sounds annoying, but he was very sweet.  He always had a smile and always said 'thank you, thank you.'

It was an amazing week in Portugal.  When we got back to Porto I finally found the river and the Port wine cellars that make Porto famous with my friends from the trip.  I was sad to say goodbye to everyone I had met, but have already made a number of plans to see people again (there were six of us just from Colorado). Meeting people has by far been the best part of my trip, in every place.  With little more than a month left, I look forward to even more friendships during the whirlwind end to my trip.

Irish thoughts

Hiya! The friendly Irish greeting heard all around the country. Even though English is widely spoken around the world, I was looking forward to being in an English speaking country, if only for a few days, so that I would be able to listen to idle conversation again (eavesdrop if you will).  But the Irish accent was so fecking hard to understand...I listened to entire conversations between people without picking up any of what they were saying.

Anyways...Ireland was a very friendly country to visit. Even the immigrations officer gave me the warmest greeting I've ever gotten by someone in that position. If only the warm greetings could actually warm the body. I know my cold threshold has not had to deal with anything below 70 degrees in many months (hardly below 80 degrees even), but I still want to complain about how drastically cold Ireland feels! I pulled out as many layers as possible but I still had to buy a sweater. (The sweater is covered in cats and hearts, I am no longer in an obvious minority wearing glasses, and people don't openly tell me I have a boyish haircut...it's nice to have some hipster comforts back.) One of the most common questions I get when talking with other travelers is 'how did you pack for so many different environments?' Well, I packed versatile and 'layerable' outfits, but I may still need to purchase more layers. My next pursuit will be gloves, but I might wait until I reach eastern Europe where I won't have to sacrifice the day's food budget to stay warm. Ireland is quite nice, but quite expensive. No more gourmet meals for $3. Probably no crappy sandwiches for $3. But I was ready for this, and it is back to cooking my own food rather than eating out.

Ireland is beautiful.  My first few days were in Belfast (which is actually part of the UK and uses pounds even though it is in the state of Northern Ireland and Ireland uses euros). A big city but still manageable on foot. There is a long, violent history between the Catholics and the Protestants and a wall is still erected to divide the two neighborhoods (not entirely--it's not the Berlin wall, you can get from one side to the other eventually, but still it is a blaring sign of the division that exists even today). There are also many, many murals around the city displaying citizens' viewpoints on the history of their city. these were beautiful and emotional, and probably even more meaningful had I taken the tour that explained them all. But I just checked them out by foot.

I came to Ireland to see the Lumineers and the Civil Wars. The show was quite excellent. I was even in the front row without having to throw out elbows, and no one crowded me during the show.  I had planned to go meet the Lumineers at their merchandise table after the show and bond over common Denver interests, but they weren't at the table, so I was not able to expand our Denver circle of friends to include them (sorry!). 

My next couple of days I bypassed Dublin to get to Glendalough. A quaint hillside village without a grocery store or any industry really. Just a couple hotels and churches.  People come here to go walking. So I did. I walked and I walked up the hills, through the trees, around the lake. It was beautiful. Please see Facebook for pictures as I really don't have much else to say about walking.

Or about Ireland. So...Cheers. See you very soon, it's already November. Please vote!

Walk like an Egyptian!

Egypt is not currently at the top of most American's (or anyone's) travel lists, but it was a completely safe and thoroughly enjoyable vacation for me! Part of the joy may have been the company (Cormac, my AmeriCorps teammate and 3 of his friends from Peace Corps Uganda), but Egypt had a lot to offer of their tourism industry and they're begging you to do ANYTHING because everyone is scared of Egypt right now.  

Due to the world being quite small Cormac had a friend in Cairo who was able to walk us around the town for a bit.  We didn't have much time but we made our way to the River Nile and then over to Tahrir Square--scene of the revolution. But, it didn't seem all that spectacular or dangerous or even like a good place to gather. It was actually a round about full of regular traffic. Our 'guide' did point out Mubarak's old headquarters which protestors successfully destroyed.  Other than that there was no sign of revolution, at least not on a Monday morning.

Our first night in town we took some giant dinner boat up and down the river Nile and watched a belly dancer perform.  It was a very bizarre and tourist oriented experience, but we had some good laughs over our mostly American meal.

The next morning we took a cab out to Giza to see the pyramids.  Had there not been traffic it would have been about a 15-20 minute cab ride from downtown Cairo to this magnificent ancient wonder of the world!  I know I was all up on a high horse about animal rights after the elephant park, so go ahead and judge me for taking the tourist camel ride to the pyramids. I am a bit ashamed, but it was the Egypt experience that the whole group wanted. Who am I to say no? 

The pyramids were even more incredible than pictures depict (as long as you are not a bitter cynic). I learned many facts that I can't keep straight about the pyramids we saw: one was originally covered in marble, one has a hole in it, one is oblong because they realized it wouldn't hold the weight once they got higher in construction. We saw the oldest pyramid which is over 7,000 years old, and we saw the first perfect pyramid.  We saw the sphinx who is missing its nose because Napolean Bonaparte came to steal it (not because it had syphilis). And finally we descended into one of the pyramids. It was an absolute claustrophobic experience climbing down these steps into an abyss that is thousands of years old, in the middle of the earth, and once held a bunch of dead people--trust me, it smelled like it. Ooh, we also went to a museum where one of the original mummies was on display. A five thousand year old corpse perfectly preserved! Well, not  perfectly. It was solid black and had lost a toe, but otherwise you could discern all the different human features on the tiny little king, even his toenails.

After the pyramids we hopped on a bus and made our way south to Aswan.  We site-saw the high dam which is currently the third largest dam in the world and provides power to Egypt, Sudan, and another country.  Russia was quicker to help Egypt than the US, so the friendship monument at the dam is dedicated to Russia, but as a US citizen, I appreciate friendship with Egypt. Also in (around) Aswan we went to the temple of Isis and later traveled into the desert to Abu Simbil to check out the temples Ramses built for himself and his favorite wives. All of this ancient stonework was pretty incredible.  These temples were enormous and covered (from head to toe except that temples don't have heads or toes) in hieroglyphics and pictures of Pharos and gods, and there were giant stone statues as well.  And these were all created thousands of years ago!

The temples and pyramids were (for lack of variety in my vocabulary) absolutely amazing to see and amazing to just be in the presence of something so simple but so brilliant. Despite their amazingness my favorite night in Egypt was the simple felucca ride we took.  After much touring and traveling we got back to Aswan tired and confused (we never were clear on what we were going to be doing, our concierge guy just ushered us from one thing to the next...), but we gathered our bags and boarded the little sailboat.  Our captain then sailed us slowly down the Nile while preparing for us a delicious lunch, tea, and dinner.  It wasn't until after dinner that we realized we would actually be spending the night on the little boat.  But it was the perfect night, even if we didn't ever know what was going on.  We simply laid about on the boat, drank some delicious warm beer, and went to bed with the sun. In the morning we returned to shore and, well rested, made our way to Luxor.  I spent the afternoon with my friends, but because of my flight to Ireland I wasn't able to stay in Luxor and visit the valley of the Kings or any other tourist attractions there. Even though I missed this final tourist bit, my trip to Egypt was truly fabulous!

To and from Egypt

So this is not yet about what I did in Egypt.  I just thought my experiences going to and from Egypt were worth a quick note.

First of all getting into Egypt was a breeze. I arrived to the airport that seemed to only have a couple terminals. I then went to a bank counter to buy my entrance visa (no questions asked). I proceeded to make it quickly through immigration because the officer barely glanced at my passport as he stamped it.  Then a friendly cab driver over charged me to help with my bags and take me right to my hostel.  I was by myself so I didn't mind paying an extra couple dollars.

One cab ride I took by myself from the train station to the hostel was supposed to cost me 5-10 Egyptian pounds (Peter, our amazing hostel friend/trip planner told me this). The cab driver did not run the meter and tried to charge me 30£. Because several travel articles recommended not bargaining beforehand and simply paying the fair price and walking away after, I did. It was still a bit unsettling paying only one third of what the cabbie is demanding (even if it is an unreasonable amount) and walking away. He did not pursue me though, so I think it was alright. And I made it out of Egypt, so...no problems now.

Leaving Egypt was similarly simple, yet confusing at the same time. First of all, it took a while to find my check in gate for Etihad Airways. While searching the airport, I saw several small children playing with a lifesize, black toy gun, at the AIRPORT. When I found the Etihad gate it was closed and I had to go through the gate of a different airline.  Once inside I tracked down the appropriate airline where I stood around confused because everyone just stormed the counters, no queues, no signs, just chaos. I eventually obtained my tickets and checked my bags. I then made my way to customs (or whoever the leaving authorities are) and the woman behind the desk stamped my passport with even less of a glance than the entry guy. I think at one point my bags went through a scanner, but it was quite a lax experience. Soon afterwards I was bussed to my excellent international flight and made my way to Europe (via Abu Dahbi). (Etihad Airways is my new favorite international carrier: great food, great tv/movie selection, and great free booze!) (Also, apparently it is perfectly normal to bring your uncaged pet falcon onto the flight on your arm with Etihad Airways).

In india

India. Quite indescribable, but I will try. People say that You either love India or you hate it.  Well, more 'and' than 'or'. There are parts that I love and parts that I hate. And sometimes the parts that I love are also the parts that I hate. 

My main example: the people constantly looking at you. Sometimes I find it endearing, everyone just seems curious and are excited to see a foreigner. In a different mood, that same look can get under my skin and I wish that EVERYONE would stop staring and leering without any discretion. But overall it's more positive than negative...sometimes I even feel like a celebrity as kids just come to ask your name and shake your hand, maybe have a photo taken with you (on their camera or yours, doesn't matter which!).  

The traffic is something else that I love and hate. I am quite fascinated by the traffic which seems to have no rules. Anything that moves (humans, bicycles, bicycles with multiple passengers, cars, vans, tractors, carts drawn by cows or camels, tuk-tuks, buses) can be in the flow of traffic on the street. If you are not happy with the flow of traffic, feel free to turn around and barrel into oncoming traffic to get there faster.  And the number of people in each vehicle. The other day I rode home in a van with 15 school children and 7 adults in addition to the driver. One day at school I watched a driver pick up several pre-kindergarteners and shove them feet first into a packed van. All of this commotion happens every day, too! By western standards the traffic would warrant some sort of huge festival making it impossible to get around, but this is just everyday India.

Another paradox of India is its cleanliness. Yes, India is dirty. There is a layer of dirt on everything and garbage piled up throughout the streets. People make a toilet out of seemingly any part of the street and animals are roaming everywhere. Still people are very diligent about sweeping up the mess in their house, on the sidewalk, or in the street.  I've even see someone sweeping the lawn at a school.

One of the teachers I am working with asked me 'what is your favorite thing about India?'  My answer to that is how removed India is from western culture.  Even though it is huge and incredibly populated their conventions are still quite basic and home comforts have not made their way into life here. It is distinctly India. Shops are set up for one particular niche...you buy fabric from one, take it to the tailor at another, and have a garment delivered to your home by someone else.  And business seems to be quite familial.  There may be a handful of people behind a counter, and each one participates in the transaction, not just sitting and waiting for whatever else to happen. I don't think my point is clear, but I think this point requires more ramble-y verbal examples than an attempt through writing...sorry!

So what have I been up to in India? I am volunteering at a school called Tender Heart.  It is an NGO set up by this marvelous woman, Renu, who has a passion for education.  She started by teaching just a few children in her home and now has an entire school running smoothly. In addition to educating children, she makes a point to educate the woman in local villages to be self sustainable in their daily life. The school has some 30 students with disabilities of all varieties (and unfortunately only 7 teachers working with them...considering how much attention some kids require, they are quite short staffed).  I have been working in these classrooms for my two weeks here. In the morning time we do yoga and meditation and then go outside to play softball. It is mostly helpful but sometimes confusing that I am familiar with the rules of softball. Some rules are different altogether, like, a foul ball....well there is no such thing as a foul ball, if you hit it you run. There are the changing home run rules. Sometimes if you hit it to the back wall it is an automatic home run, sometimes not.  Sometimes the people on base have to run if it is a home run, sometimes not. Sometimes you all score on the home run, sometimes just the batter.  But I never try to follow score keeping or outs because...well, sometimes score is counted, sometimes not, sometimes outs are counted, sometimes not. Despite all the confusion, it is quite an enjoyable morning.  In the afternoon I work with different students on their English and maths.  Mostly we write letters and numbers together, count out loud and go through the alphabet saying 'a is for apple,' etc. Sometimes they also try to give me their Hindi homework to correct and I politely say 'I have no idea what this says,' and they procede to give me a mouthful of instructions in Hindi and I stare blankly at them and say 'I still have no idea what you are saying.' 

It has been just two weeks and there is a huge language barrier, but I have grown quite fond of each student and I will greatly miss life at Tender Heart.

A trip to the Taj

My trip to the Taj began in typical Indian fashion...in no rush.  We had to get up early for breakfast, then sit and wait for the driver. The trip, though only about 150 km (90ish miles) away took about four hours. We had nice cars rented for the trip, meaning there was blessed A/C for the long journey. I should point out the average temperatures in India right now are in the 90s. Not merely breaking into the 90s, but a solid 95, 96 degrees.  I was seated on the sunny side of the car, so I still warmed quite a bit, but without A/C I would have melted before we got there. Once we did get there, I started to melt. But the beautiful Taj was overwhelming enough for me to forget about all of the sweat pouring down my face. It really, really is not overrated. There are red palaces constructed in similar fashion in Delhi, but there is something magical about the all white marble masterpiece of perfect symmetry.  We had a good guide who shared all kinds of interesting facts (like the 2 builders from Iran hired to build the Taj had one hand cut off when it was complete so as to not recreate something similar), took our pictures, and led us inside of the sauna called the Taj Mahal.  I say this because to go inside of the Taj they let you in by the roomful. There is no queue, just a swarm of people pushing and shoving and getting as close to you as possible so as to share drops of sweat with everyone before they let you inside to see the tombs of the king and the queen. It is noisy, bumpy, hot and chaotic...even as a world famous tourist attraction, it is distinctly, marvelously Indian.

Planes, trains, and...actually just automobiles

Travel in India.

There are main highways that have traffic lanes painted, but they are not really used...a three lane road could have five lanes of traffic. Once you get off the highway, the main roads carry on in much the same way.  Occasionally there are stop lights to help you turn into traffic. Otherwise, if you are making a right turn--same to us as making a left turn...traffic in India flows from the left side--through oncoming traffic, you simply wait for a big enough gap like, say, a bicycle-sized-gap in traffic, and merge forward, hoping that car you ducked in front of has a good braking system.  You have to inch forward like this through the 3-6 lanes of traffic flying by. As a passenger you have no control of how this happens, but you get a front row view of all the near misses. 

After the main roads you turn onto the dirt roads.  There are main dirt roads which are generally wide enough for 2 cars, and the smaller back roads which are barely big enough for one.  All of the dirt roads have huge holes everywhere and are painfully bumpy when passing through in car or tuk-tuk. 

Vehicles on the road consist of cars, buses (that don't seem to stop for passengers, they slow down and you have to hop on to the rolling bus), motorcycles (with 1-5 passengers such as a single driver, two or three friends, or a family of mom, dad, son, daughter and baby on one motor bike), tuk-tuks, bicycles, rikshaws (a bicycle carrying passengers or goods such as a washing machine, a refrigerator, or bricks [we really saw a man transporting appliances up a hill!]), and camels. Animals on or in the streets include camels, cows, ox, pigs, dogs, monkeys, goats and rodents.  And in the streets they are all grazing on garbage.  Its a strange, sad system, but it seems to work.

Delhi is huge.  And crowded. It takes a long time to get anywhere, but there is plenty of time to marvel at all the traffic moving constantly.

And the horn!  I believe Indians just constantly lay on the horn, rather than use it lightly when someone gets in the way, or even occasionally to let others know they are passing (which has been more common in my travels than in the US). It is constant. And unpleasant. Many of the cars and tuk-tuks are old and decrepit, and the horns blare out that misery like an anthem "I'M DYING, BUT GET THE F@?K OUT OF MY WAY" Contrary to the horn though, there doesn't seem to be much road rage in India.  Despite the awful traffic, everyone seems quite content.  Strange, but I'll take it!

A trip to the doctor

Ear infections.  Associated most of the time with babies, sometimes with children, but rarely, if ever, with adults. But for one month now I have been combating an ear infection. 

First I hoped it would go away on its own. Of course it didn't. 

I didn't really want to go to a doctor, so I just stopped by a pharmacy and got some pills. They helped a little. I was able to recover from my underbite and my ear eventually unplugged, but something was still off. 

After a day of traveling my ear decided "I don't like airplanes, please pay more attention to me," and returned to being plugged and painful. So, what better introduction to India than a trip to the local doctor.

I am currently in Faridabad, a neighborhood in greater Delhi, and I believe it is quite typical. The home where I am staying is quite nice, 3 floors, plenty of bedrooms, nice living areas and very clean.  Right next door is a trash pile in a vacant lot, and very poor housing next to that...everything all thrown together. I am staying with a host family, so young Jaiya, the 14 year old daughter, brought me out to the doctor.  We stepped out of the gate, avoiding the cow grazing in the middle of the dirt road, and headed to the local doctor just a few  blocks away.  The doctor's 'office' (for lack of appropriate word) was the first floor of a residence with a couple people waiting in case a patient should show up.  Jaiya was there to help explain, and a thermometer was jammed under my tongue while the doctor was retrieved from upstairs.  The doctor came down and shoved my head to the side and pulled my ear around, peering into it at different angles with a flashlight (a regular flashlight that we might use for camping rather than doctoring). He asked me a couple of questions about the pain ("not terrible until you started prodding without delicacy"), put together a smattering of pills, and sent me to the pharmacist for more medicines. 

At the pharmacy, a young man of perhaps 15 years was at the counter to deal with customers.  Jaiya gave him my prescription (written on a spare piece of notebook paper, nothing official like we know prescriptions), but he said we had to wait.  I assumed for a supervisor, which perhaps it was. About five minutes later another boy came to the counter and retrieved my prescriptions just as easily as the other guy could have, which makes me think he was a 'superior.' This other boy, however, the official pharmacist, could not have been more than 12 years old! But he gave me my ear drops and more pills and sent me on my way.  I am now home taking 4 pills, who knows what they are, 3 times a day and have some variety of ear drop to use.  What I am taking, I have idea, but it feels like it might already be working.

I bought health insurance for this trip, but the grand total for the doctor's visit and the pharmacy was 154 rupees. That is $3. It was funny, he didn't have a one cent piece to give me change at the pharmacy, so I got 3 pieces of candy as payment...fine by me.

More irrelevant thoughts

More vaguely related thoughts about travel:

On getting a hair cut:  If you like a bargain, come to Thailand (or probably anywhere in SE Asia). A shampoo, head massage, haircut, blow dry, and style were $7.  I've never understood why hair cuts cost so damn much, so this is a price range I am comfortable participating in. If you are very particular about how it turns out (which, really...who cares? It's hair, it grows back) don't brave the language barrier.  Such simple words to describe what you want will get you nowhere.  For me it was a matter of saying this much, pointing to my chin. There was no saying "yes I want that much cut off, that's how short it usually is, I just haven't gotten a haircut in over a year." It was simply a point to my chin and consistent nodding when asked "this ok?"  A few weeks later when I was ready for the pixie cut I had a picture ready, but in the end I didn't know how to say "no, I want to keep my bangs long. Stop cutting so much off!" so I ended up looking more like Nate Reuss than Justin Beiber (because with hair this short I really only think of boys to compare to, not girls...).  Hopefully it will have grown into what I wanted by the time I see any of you, and any pictures will happen to be of things rather than me and things.

On restaurants:  I much prefer the SE Asian restaurant hospitality (except for when you are wandering aimlessly). What I mean is, before you decide where you are going to eat, the wait staff is milling about and they can be relentless in trying to recruit you to their restaurant.  But once you sit down to a meal, they are excellent.  They promptly bring you a menu, promptly take your order, and promptly bring you what you order.  After that you are free to eat and drink at your own pace without interruption.  They do not come up to check on you every two seconds to make sure everything is perfect. But they are milling about, you simply have to catch their attention and they come to your service. In touristy areas you may also be bombarded by locals (or fake locals) trying to sell you tourist crap, but as long as you don't show the faintest interest, they generally leave you alone.

An end to Thailand

With time to spare before I needed to get to the farm, I boarded some trains and buses and made my way to Krabi, a beachy area of southern Thailand. After recently recovering from a draining head cold, I was struck down again, as soon as I got to Krabi, with an ear infection. So some of the beauty of the gorgeous seas and limestone rock formations escaped me as I dealt with throbbing ear pain and an insufferable underbite. I did force myself to take advantage of the area a bit, spent some time on the beach, scaled some of the rock formations with a rock climbing group, and found some delicious food (that didn't require too much chewing), but I don't think southern Thailand had the appropriate awe inspiring affect on me.

I left Krabi for Ranong where I was embraced by Ta, a local Thai restaurant owner who sympathizes with travelers. She took pity on me as soon as I stepped off the bus and the taxi drivers started bombarding me with offers to drive me to the center of town.  Ta steered me away, made me dinner, took me out for drinks, offered accommodation, and helped me to catch my bus the next morning...such a sweet woman!

With Ta's help I found myself in PakSong, the tiny village where TCDF Eco-Logic Farm is located, and was welcomed (warmly) by Ingrid, the Dutch co-owner of the foundation. The Thai Child Development Foundation was established as a farm/guest house to help fund a local school where students with disabilities receive attention and education that is otherwise unavailable to them in such a remote location.  Additionally they help to fund raise for local families that require medical services that are just impossible to attain on their own. Understandably, volunteers aren't involved with the special school unless they are staying for a longer period of time, it's not good for any child to make connections that aren't going to be lasting.  I talked with Ingrid though about my desire to work in special education in the future and she brought me down to observe the classroom one morning.

So I signed up to volunteer on an organic farm hoping to do some organic farming. But...it's the rainy season in Thailand, so most of the work was more about general maintenance. The main project was rebuilding this clay house made of completely natural materials.  The work was pretty fun, but I also made myself busy with other tasks such as weeding, recycled art crafts, and spreading compost on pineapple plants.  This was the most farm related task of the week, but it's toll on my gag reflex and the lingering smell on my hands (long past an immediate shower and several rigorous hand washings) made it the least pleasant of the week.

The setting was incredible.  Located on a lush, jungle-y mountainside, there was plenty of hiking and much relaxing to be done.  The food was awesome: local, organic, delicious. The company, overall, was quite nice, passing the evenings with games of 'UNO' and some guitar. It was also a unique experience.  One of the volunteers, self christened 'Strong Wings,' was quite opinionated on energies, auras, government control, the end of the world...things like that. I chose to listen to his ideas for several hours one evening, but, like I said, it was very unique. Hopefully he didn't read my skeptical energy too easily.

And now I am headed back to Chiang Mai to collect my visa and carry on to India. While chatting with someone recently, I told him I was flying into Delhi.  He immediately started ranting about how I needed to get out of Delhi as soon as possible because it is loud, dirty, and depressing and I will hate it.  Thank you for the advice sir, but I am ONLY going to be in Delhi for the next three weeks with a volunteer program, but you've inspired great confidence in me. Regardless, I'm ready to move on from Thailand and I am very much looking forward to getting to India (to eat so much naaaaaaaaan!).

I'll report back soon(er or later) on how I handle the chaos.

General thoughts about travel

Musing about travel.

I did not get to go back to the elephant park because getting a visa was of course more complicated than filling in an application and paying a fee...why would we want things to be simple.  It involved filling in an online application, making an appointment for two days later to turn in a hard copy of the same paperwork, wait for an hour for them to approve the visa and collect the fee. The visa will be ready for pickup A WEEK LATER! I was not planning to spend this much time in Chiang Mai, and I have plans for being on a farm next week.  So let's make things more complicated!  I am going to catch a train to Bangkok to get a bus to Krabi to play on the rocks and beach, then another couple buses to the farm for a week to then catch a few more buses back to Thailand to catch a train to Chiang Mai for the sole purpose of collecting my visa, then catch the train right back to Bangkok to finally catch a flight to India (a day past my legal stay in Thailand). The leisure of traveling without plans sometimes leads you into a strange mess of traveling, but I guess it's alright...I've got a visa (next week).

Toilets:  I don't mind the squat toilet that is typical of southeast Asia, and I don't even mind the water stream instead of toilet paper (like the spray nozzle of a kitchen sink). Except that I always think of drinking fountains.  You know how you don't really want to take a drink from the same spout that a small child has just made out with to get a few drops of water down...that thought alway crosses my mind when I think about using the water stream and I wish for a little bit of western comfort in the form of toilet paper.  Which often there is, but sometimes...

Beds: Once upon a time I spent the weekend with a friend who was just moving in.  In one room there was a bed not yet properly assembled, the box spring was hastily left on top of the mattress. After a small number of cocktails I deemed this box spring a good place to sleep and did not recognize it's discomfort (or my stupidity) until morning. The beds in Thailand have been comparable to that box spring, and I have not had enough cocktails every night to mask that discomfort.

Bugs: I have gotten spoiled in Denver with its lack of bugs that bite.  There are a lot of mosquitoes here.  I have been sleeping with a tube of antihistamine in hand for when I wake myself up sleep scratching.  

I wear bug repellant, but if you miss one tiny centimeter of skin they find it.  At least the city is not as bad as the jungle areas. 

I have not come across bed bugs (yet!), but I dream about them sometimes, and worry I can feel them crawling on my skin.

I went rock climbing the other day. The views were incredible, very green. I had really nice guides, but it was the kind of adventure that could have used a friend to rejoice and commiserate with.  Commiserate because some of the routes were f***ing difficult, and it's hard to motivate yourself to keep going after bruising your knees and cutting your hands to shreds on limestone.  Limestone is this lovely textured rock that provides excellent hand and foot holds.  Textured is a euphemism for jagged and sharp.  My poor little paws are still recovering, and I can't stop calling them paws in their pathetic, curled up, cut up, sore state. But I did make it up all 6 climbs...which brings me back to wishing I had a friend to rejoice with.  I know I sound like I am complaining, but I'm not.  I am well aware of how incredible it is that I had the chance to go rock climbing in Thailand!!

The food is still really cheap and delicious.  I am going to come home chubby.

Elefante

After my first 24 hours in Thailand I was ready to write it off as overrated...not nearly as wonderful as everyone kept saying it would be.  But after my first week I have forgotten all of the frustration and anxiety my first day brought, and am completely in love with the Elephant Nature Park.  It has been everything for me that Bali wasn't (and Bali wasn't even bad for me). It was interacting with pele on a more personal level (rather than being served by the tourism industry), it was having something to do each day, it's playing with animals, it's vegetarian food, and so many other things...

The Elephant Nature Park is a refuge for elephants rescued from their working lives.  Lek, the woman who started it has such a huge passion for her elephants and all living things.  She started the park 15(ish?) years ago with 5 elephants.  Through donations, activism, and volunteers, she has grown the park into a sanctuary for 34 elephants, a herd of water buffalo, 280 dogs, a handful of cats, chickens, a pig, and probably many more animals I'm not even aware of.  It also benefits the local community as it provides a number of jobs for people that live there, as well as refugees that have come from Burma. I know this is going to be too cheesy to even read, but it is a place built of love and compassion.

First of all there are the elephants that have been rescued.  Any working elephant--circus performing ele's, street begging ele's, ele's that paint, ele's you ride, any elephant--has been through a horrific breaking period where they are beaten into submission until they listen to (fear) their mahout (trainer). (So please, please, please do not support the elephant tourism industry even if they seem well looked after now).  Lek has rescued over 30 elephants that were still being abused or had been injured and brought them to her park to heal and live as normal a life as possible.  I could go on and on with heartbreaking stories about their broken hips/backs/feet and other abuses they've faced (such as becoming addicted to amphetamines they were forced to take to continue working instead of resting), but I know it's not the most uplifting thing to read.  So now they roam around all day and get fed an bathed by volunteers.  As a volunteer I can tell you it never got old feeding an elephant, or even jest seeing them walk past.  Sure there were some less than pleasant tasks they asked of us, but even shit shoveling wasn't that bad.  In fact I preferred it to working in the kitchen where you washed and chopped tons of pumpkins and melons for the elephants.  They eat about 10% of their body weight each day, and there are 33 elephants weighing in at about 10,000 pounds each...that is a lot of food to prepare.  They also eat a lot of sweet corn, so another task was to drive to the corn field and chop down stalks with machetes, bundle them up and carry them back to the truck.  Mind you the weather in Thailand is hot, humid, and rainy right now, so the conditions could be cause for complaint, but I still had a lot of fun.  In the afternoon there was an occasional job like cutting more corn, but they also prepared a lot of activities for us, such as a park tour where we met all 33 elephants and a number of heartbreaking documentaries to watch. One afternoon brought a Thai lesson.  I found the culture fascinating but I failed miserably at the language.  Their alphabet is made up of 44 characters, 30 some are vowel sounds, and there are five different tones. So one combination of letters could be five different words even though my silly American ear only hears one thing.

In addition to rescuing elephants, Lek has rescued about 300 dogs--most from the flood in Bangkok a couple years ago--that now live at the park.  Most of them are across the street in a dog shelter, but about 50 lucky ones get to run around this side and do whatever they want.  They are literally on the tables and some wait at your bedroom on case you are enough of a sucker to let them in at night.  Despite the high likelihood that they have fleas, I fell prey to one sweet little dog that hopped onto my bed before I had the chance to kick her out.

The animals are great, but it's also the people I've spent this week with that have been wonderful!  The staff are so warm and welcoming.  They joke around with you like you are old friends.  And it has been great getting to know all of the other volunteers, many of whom are also traveling for a long time and have made an important pit stop out of the elephant nature park.

So all of this (and the amazing food--it's like eating at Thai Basil every night!) has won me over and I hope to be able to spend a second week here before I head south to work on a farm. Let's just hope this trip to the Indian Embassy is quick and painless.

More on Bali

Hello again dear blog followers.  I write to you as I take in my last few hours of Balinese sunshine--rather, hide from the sunshine as I still can't seem to spread my sunscreen in an even layer that eliminates patchy burns. Anyway...

As wonderful and luxurious as these last two weeks have been, I am ready to move back to a more structured schedule, so to speak, where I have things I have to do each day, and people that I will be spending more than a few hours with.  I must admit that being the lonely tourist in Bali has worn me down a bit, and I was feeling a bit homesick and quite anxious about aimlessly traveling around.  I grew tired of walking around a town by myself to take in the sights and find the best place to ask for another "table for one." 

To quell my loneliness I tried to make myself busier.  I visited a monkey sanctuary one afternoon.  This was a lush garden park in the middle of Ubud with hundreds of monkeys crawling all over everything, including you if you are in possession of any food.  There are stands to buy bananas so you can intentionally feed them, or they will crawl up your leg to find any scraps you may have forgotten in your handbag. 

I found a wonderful open air yoga studio to practice at.  Classes were a bit of a sweaty mess, considering Bali's humidity and proximity to the equator, but it was nice to practice with other people again.

And I finally found the courage to try surfing. I stopped in at one of many surf shops to sign up for a three hour lesson.  Apparently surfing and snowboarding are pretty similar in terms of finding balance, but my one attempt at snowboarding (during which I spent more time on my butt than on my feet) did not inspire any confidence in my ability to stand on a surfboard. Turns out I am a natural and I stood up right away!  Okay, maybe lucky is the more appropriate word as it took another hour to stand again, and I managed to clock myself in the head twice while pursuing success.  I should also point out that the waves I was surfing on were probably laughable to anyone who actually knows what they are doing on a surfboard, but I don't care...small victories!

My three hours of surfing turned into an entire afternoon playing on the beach with a rowdy crowd of Balinese guys running a little concession stand on the beach. I returned to the same spot for several more days after that, as they made quite an entertaining bunch.  I also found myself on a lunch and dinner date with my surf instructor since I failed to play the "I have a boyfriend back home" card. It was nice having company for a couple meals, but I will not admit to being single again anytime soon...too hard to get rid of the pursuer without being flat out mean.

I finally met another lonely traveler hanging out on the beach as well.  We both lamented the woes of traveling alone on an island seemingly made for groups or couples, and spent the following three days together.  Much of the time we just lounged at the beach which would normally make me crazy, but to do so in company of a friend is much more tolerable.  At night we went to various sleazy night clubs where we sat passing judgment on the other girls wearing dresses so short you could see their underwear (or unfortunate lack of it) and speculating on their loose morals while on holiday.  Sure it was a bit cynical, but at least my only regrets the next day were my unfortunate booze choices still lingering in my stomach and head (keeping me off a surfboard for another day).

Making friends really enhanced the last few days of vacation here on Bali, but I am happy to be moving on.  I will report back soon(ish) on the elephants and whatever else Thailand has to offer.

Your worldly correspondent, Richelle Jean Rothman

Bali

Broome to Bali: Serene Isolation to Jovial Chaos

The basis of this trip around the world (after the NOLS section) was two-fold: 1) to find different volunteer opportunities in different countries and 2) to not plan too much and make choices based on other people's recommendations.  Clause number 2 is what brought me to Bali.  My beloved NOLS instructor Marcelo gave me an entire itinerary should I choose to follow it.  His recommendations were largely based on his love of surfing, but there is plenty for this non surfer to enjoy as well (until I find some cajones to give surfing a try). So far Bali has provided a life of leisure.  I have eaten many delicious meals (mostly of fried noodles and vegetables with peanut sauce), ordered far too many mango lassis (creamy mango drink), and indulged in desserts such as coconut pie and fried banana.  And the cost of fine dining?  Never more than $10, even the night I got seafood as well as a cocktail!  To ease my achy muscles that hauled myself and my 50 pound backpack for many miles recently, I stopped in at a massage shop (one of many that line the streets of Bali as frequently as we see Starbucks in a big city [which they do have here, of course]). The price of this blissful hour of muscle relief (during which the tiny masseur is literally climbing all over you)? A mere $7...it's been difficult to stop myself from going every day, so far I've gone twice.

After sleeping on the ground for 45 days any bed feels suitable for a princess, throw as many peas under there as you want, as long as I'm not sleeping on sticks, rocks, or jagged ground anymore.  I was lured into a fancy hotel the first night--a large brick temple like place with a lush jungle terrace around a clean little pool.  My fancy abode cost me $25, I have since humbled down to $10/night accommodations, giving up the pool, but usually still getting breakfast and an occasional lakeside view.

To fulfill my life as a tourist, I went to visit Tanah Lot temple at sunset.  Tanah Lot is a beautiful stone temple built right on the ocean.  So close to the ocean in fact, that when the tide is high, access to the stairs is under water.  There is some sort of holy snake that hasn't grown in 40 years that makes a highly overrated attraction at Tanah Lot, as well as some holy water blessing that you can pay to receive.  It was all around a beautiful site, and I took a million pictures to try (and fail) to capture the beauty of it.  I did not feel too silly with my camera out the whole time because the place was filled with snap happy tourists. I was not surprised when one family approached me with their camera, so I smiled and nodded "yes, I'll take your picture," but oh no!  I was the tourist attraction, they wanted a picture with the tall, blonde (and for good measure extremely beautiful) white girl.  I have come to terms with the fact that I'm pretty short, so it made me laugh to be called upon for my height.  But the family was very amicable, each member shook my hand and thanked me for being in their picture.

After sunset I went to my first Kacek fire dance performance.  I have since been to another one and as it turns out, they all tell the same story (which I am still not clear on, something about desire and power and spirits?). Of course each performance has its differences, so I was happy to sit through another of the same show where men chant and sing to set the tone, and characters dance around in beautiful, ornate costumes.

On my second day in Bali, I decided to brave (emphasis on brave) the traffic and rent a scooter to get out of Kuta which has a sort of Cancun/Panama City Beach vacation feel.  For a whopping $50 (insurance included) I got myself a scooter for the week and took off for Kintamani, a tiny town on the north side of the island.  These two descriptors did not necessarily help me since I had no idea which way was north, nor we're any signs posted to say "Kintamani, that way." With this solid foundation of information I took to the road, completely making up where I thought I needed to go, until I finally asked a gas station attendant where Kintamani was.  It turns out I was headed the right way, and so my journey continued as such, me stopping every time there was a fork in the road to ask "Kintamani?" "Kintamani?" Everyone was quite helpful and two hours later I was greeted by a Balinese man ready to take me to a room at his hotel, the giant backpack seems to be a dead give away.  He was very helpful, and set up a sunrise hike for me-the reason I came, and the rest of the staff seemed to cater to my every need.  I went to bed around 6 to be ready for my 3:30 am wake up call, and at 4 o'clock I was being led up Mount Batur. It was totally dark, but looking up the entire path was lit by tourists' flashlights.  We got to the top just as the first bit of light was creating silhouettes of the surrounding landscape.  Then the clouds rolled in and we sat in fog for 30 minutes hoping we wouldn't miss the entire sunrise.  Luck was on our side though, and just as the sun was creeping over the horizon the clouds began to part (sporadically, but enough to offer amazing glimpses of the sunrise).  Once the sun was up and the clouds cleared the view was amazing for a breakfast of eggs and bananas cooked in the steam pockets of the volcano (did I mention Mt Batur was a volcano?).  Sunlight made the hike back down a breeze and I was back in my hotel by 9:30 with the rest of the day ahead of me.  I was sad to leave the friendly staff at my hotel, but I was out of things to do in Kintamani so I hopped back on the trusty bike and headed south to Ubud. I was hesitant to stop as Ubud is recently famous for being featured in 'Eat, Pray, Love,' but after a few hours I began to warm up to the less chaotic, party vibes of Kuta, and the less isolated feel of Kintamani.  I don't know what else I'll get up to in my next week in Bali, but hopefully find the courage to surf and relax a bit before heading to Thailand where elephant volunteering and farm work await me.  Until then, Namasté.

Australia!

Hola blog followers,

You can breathe again...I have survived!  And now I can begin the lively accounts of my trip around the world.  Much has happened since my paradisical layover in Hawaii, so let me recount to you here my Australian adventures with NOLS (the national outdoor leadership school) in a short story:

So when I left the most I could tell you was that I was going to Broome on the northwest side of Australia to go backpacking and sea kayaking.  If you asked me a question I gave you a non committal "sure." Let me fill you in on the facts.  Broome is a small city built on an industry of pearl farming where the base for NOLS is located. We arrived to base and dove right into organized chaos of measuring out and packing all the food into bags, unpacking everything we thought we needed, eliminating a bunch of stuff, buying a few extra oddities, repacking all of our downsized gear.  Interspersed with all this chaos was a concise briefing of where we were going and what we were doing, and an awkwardly quiet lunch with the group of people we were about to spend 45 days with.  For evening entertainment we went down to the ocean and watched the full moon rise bright and orange.  The reflection it cast made it look like a step ladder leading to the sky...a pretty amazing site to set high expectations for the adventure.  

CHAPTER ONE: SEA KAYAKING

We went to bed early to get up at "sparrow's fart," an expression of earliness based off the fact that it is so early sparrow's are not yet singing.  So we piled into 2 small, cramped cars and got cozy (mind you we were still complete strangers) for a 10 hour car ride to the Dampier Archipelago.  Apparently even in a tiny rural town the middle of nowhere requires a trek to get there.  But it was so worth the drive!  Dampier Archipelago is just off Mordor, a giant natural gas plant whose existence goes against all of the NOLS principles (Leave no trace, respect the environment, etc.).  The silver lining is this gas industry drives away tourism and these beautiful islands are completely isolated.  We jumped right into the kayaking.  We learned how to escape the kayak should you cap size and roll over and then took off right away down the coast to a sandy cove to make camp.  We spent 14 days kayaking across the Indian Ocean around the islands of Dampier.  We camped on beaches and enjoyed a beautiful sunset every night as we got to know everyone in the group.  Now this was also a school, so we did have to have classes, but class on the beach and under the stars makes a pretty surreal learning environment, especially with our entertaining instructor team, Sam and Sally.  After two weeks I gained knowledge on leadership styles and first aid procedures, Aboriginal history, a basic idea of weather patterns, knowledge of tides, currents, waves and seamanship, I learned how to kayak surf in the waves, and gained the ability to bullshit about stars in the southern hemisphere (meaning constellations were pointed out to me which I pretended to be able to see in the sky).  One lesson of this section I had to learn the hard way: do not get between the kayak and the beach.  This was a fun lesson in the strength of the waves as they push the kayak to the shore and your legs will not stop that.  Fortunately I am a quick learner, so after getting bowled over a second time by a kayak, the lesson really stuck.  Besides that painful pair of incidents this section of the course was absolutely ideal!

CHAPTER TWO: BACKPACKING

When the first section wrapped up we climbed onto a small bus for the ten hour ride back, this time a little less cramped and a little less awkward (minus the hour I spent bawling between my peers as I finished reading my book 'Brother, I'm Dying,' I still don't understand why no one wanted to borrow such an obviously joyful book).  We arrived back at base for more organized chaos of unpacking our stuff, downsizing even more, repacking, and catching a brief slumber before heading out at 7 am for an additional 6 hours in the bus to a different middle of nowhere--The King Leopold Ranges of the Kimberly.  We had new instructors to get to know and loads more information to take in.  Scott and Marcelo were another awesome pair of instructors, and they somehow managed to teach us more first aid and leadership, and a basic concept of topographic map reading so that even I can make sense of all those squiggly lines known as contour lines.  These lessons weren't just for us to have an idea of things, we were preparing to be sent on our own student lead expeditions for five days (after just 3 weeks of learning to live in the bush).  We had to be proficient in administering first aid because we had no phones on these individual expeditions, and even so an ambulance wasn't a possibility.  If a serious injury occurred someone from the group would have to hike an additional number of miles to hopefully catch up with the instructors who could then call base to send a helicopter that day or the next to med-evac the hopefully still surviving patient.  If not that we had some gps signal contraption that would notify the Capitol that there was a distress signal coming from the Kimberly region.  The Capitol would have to call the police station to let them know about the distress signal, the police would then notify NOLS who would confirm that there were hiking groups in that area and then a helicopter would come.  Yes, these are super dramatic scenarios which fortunately did not occur, but that's what we were up against.  Proficiency in map reading was also important so that we could find our way back to where we would get picked up.  It is also a delicate art being able to find the line between knowing your exact coordinates on the map, knowing sort of where you are and where you are headed, and just being completely lost.  We had some individual test days before being sent on an entire week on our own, but the test runs we're shaky: one day we completely missed the "x" and camped in the wrong gorge, another day we couldn't quite identify where we were and ended up ascending and descending three or four additional hills because we were just a half a km north (or south, I never quite figured it out) of the ideal, planned route.  Still, Scott and Marcelo deemed us ready to take on the outback on our own so we split into two groups and navigated 60+km (36 miles) in five days on our own.  We came so far from the first few days which were between 4-6 km and we thought that was impossibly difficult, to cruising across 12km at the end of our trip, even doing 17 km one day.  As a Colorado snob, I was originally thinking we weren't covering that much distance "I hike all the time, at altitude! I'll be fine." I did not really factor in the additional 40-50 pound pack I would be carrying, and the every day aspect of it--no flopping down uselessly on the couch all day afterwards, just another day of hiking.  Additionally, there were no trails for us to follow.  We crossed a variety of terrain with a great deal of waist high grass and shrubbery as well as numerous rocks all over the ground for ankle twisting and loss of leg control causing you to flop sideways into the brush.  Oh and of course the different elevations we dealt with--many hills to go up and down.  It was a balancing act: making sure you looked up to take in the beauty of your surroundings, but looked down at your compass and map to stay on course, but looked up for identifying land features, but looked down so you wouldn't fall on your ass.  I never mastered that art, but the falls almost always inspired laughter rather than anger or distress.

I know I've already rambled on quite a bit, but please bear with me...I've been gone for 45 days!  If you keep up your reading stamina, you will find some lovely anecdotes about other specifics of the trip, and hopefully it will draw a few chuckles out of you.

CHAPTER 3: ANIMALS

I had a really, really strong desire to see a koala because they are just so darn cute.  Unfortunately, they don't live on the west side of Australia so they remain a zoo creature to me.  The other Australian oddity, the kangaroo was plentiful.  On my first day I saw at least 20 kangaroos.  They we all dead on the side of the road, but it was still a bit of a novelty. Fortunately for me (and the roos) there were plenty more live ones to be seen.

Sea kayaking offered an abundance of creatures just floating about in the wild.  On our first night out a pack of dolphins swam up and leapt about in the bay.  Another day a shark swam along the shore just at my feet.  Many days we spent kayaking through the mangroves where giant green sea turtles (just like the Finding Nemo variety) swam about poking their heads up once in a while.  One morning we walked across a reef while the tide was out to look at-but not touch because everything here is potentially deadly-animals. Sam came across a giant crab (bigger than my face) out there and brought it back for lunch.  It was incredible to get this food straight out of the ocean, watch it cooked over a fire, and enjoy the freshest, most delicious crab ever without all the waste that goes into a mediocre replica at Red Lobster (sorry if that bit was too pretentious). He also picked up an octopus, to use for fishing, which I got the chance to hold and catch as it moved like flubber with suctions to try and get away.  I was allowed to touch this creature because Sam caught it and he knew that it was the harmless variety, not the blue ringed octopus which lives in the same place but will shock you or poison you so that your lungs do not work on your own and then you die.  We also came upon a number of sting rays and manta rays, but as long as you shuffled your feet as you walked they swam away instead of shooting you with their deadly stingers (RIP Mr Irwin).  No other big life threats on the water, it was winter time so the deadly jellyfish weren't in the area we cruised through.  Many beautiful fish lived at our finger tips, and the number of birds would just bowl the Rothmans over--so many loud, beautiful cockatoos flying about, numerous as pigeons, and a handful of pelicans to scare Holly away.  It was pretty incredible to be living out there among all this wildlife that most people will only ever see at a zoo or at sea world.

Hiking through the Kimberly brought much wildlife as well, and many more life threats, but the way we lumbered through the area probably scared off a majority of the animals.  Like I said, a good number of kangaroos bounded around the area, but they are shy and nocturnal creatures.  Since 7pm was a late night for me, we never really got a chance to strike up a friendship.  We became well versed in how to treat snake bites-there are like 70 of the poisonous variety in Australia-but I never did see any of them.  Nor did I ever see a dingo...heard one though.

The other creature we were to be most wary of due to the abundance of their poisonous variety was the spider, but I didn't see too many, at least not too many that looked threatening.  The biggest nuisances were the flies, the ticks, and the green ants.  The flies don't bite but they constantly swarm you and land everywhere, lips not excluded.  Ticks, the same tiny creature that sneaks all over your body as at home.  Fortunately they don't carry Lyme here and you can enjoy each tiny bite and tiny itch without panic.  Last nuisance: the green ant.  They make their nests in leaves where you don't notice and as soon as you brush past them they are all over you with tiny jaws of steel they use to pice your skin and hold on tight.  I was able to get my revenge on the green ant because their tiny green butts are edible: you just bite it and it is a zingy/citrusy burst of flavor (okay, I was too weirded out to eat an ant butt so I just licked it...same effect). 

Potentially the scariest animal we came across was the crocodile.  There are two varieties of croc: the salty and the freshy.  Both crocodiles can live in both salt water and fresh water.  We checked each pond that we swam and drank from and didn't have any problems.  I almost stepped on one hiding in a little pool we were crossing one day.  Luckily it was a freshy, the nicer croc that only attacks in defense.  The salties are the crocs that will stalk and hunt just for the kill.  We had to cross a couple rivers guaranteed to have salties.  While scoping out a good place to cross, we saw a little fellow swimming along (probably with lunch on the mind).   We carefully pursued a croc proof crossing and did not fulfill his human quota for the day.  Another night we were planning to sleep on the beach next to the river but as I was brushing my teeth I shined my light into at least 3 pairs of croc eyes.  There was debate about whether they were salties or freshness and whether it was safe to stay on the beach.  Considering it was still a crocodile and I was about to slip off into a land of unconsciousness, I high tailed it back through the shoulder high shrubbery to set up a fairly uncomfortable last minute tent far from any hungry crocs.

Australia is a marvelous place full of many exotic and dangerous animals.  But when do you suppose I was most scared for my life.  Surely you would have guessed that it was the day we encountered a cow.  Yes, it was an angry bull that gave me the biggest scare.  We were casually crossing a field when he set his eyes on us.  He did not want us to cross that way so he started making angry cow noises and hoofing the ground with open hostility.  We followed wild cow management 101 and kept eye contact, did not run/move suddenly, and made loud noises.  We spent 30 minutes screaming, chanting and even singing at this bull until we admitted defeat and hid behind a rock for 20 more minutes until he forgot about us and we could discretely back track and slink away unnoticed.  I have never had the urge to pursue bullfighting as a profession, but life thought I should really feel it out.  As fun as that encounter was, as well as several other similar yet less dramatic episodes in cowland that day, I maintain that I do not wish to become a matador or a rodeo clown.

CHAPTER 4: FOOD

Oh the delicious food.  We measured everything out the first day we were there, but I didn't quite take in what I was seeing: carbs, sugar, carbs, starch, carbs, and the other snack oddity (like tuna packets).  Now, I've come to be a bit snobbish about food.  I appreciate a certain quality of ingredients and favors.  Not all hope was lost, we got some fresh foods each ration and the occasional curry packet for good seasoning.  But two onions, one green pepper and some broccoli only goes so far in a group of four people burning insane amounts of calories hiking with 50 pound packs each day.  And the good seasonings were used up in the first few days so that the end of the week meant ramen noodles with mashed potatoes in a slop reminiscent of that 2nd grade lunch lady delight you had hoped to forget.  Yet despite this appealing description the food was always devoured (with liberal amounts of garlic salt).  Unfortunately I succumbed to some vicious heartburn on this diet, so to the delight of my cook groups I always had to plead "can we please leave this bland food bland because I am an old man with heartburn radiating out of my ears.". I am sure they loved that, but they were quite accommodating.  I may be over dramatizing a bit, we were creative enough to make pizzas and calzones, cakes, cookies, cinnamon rolls, and some pretty decent curry dishes.  I am glad to be back in a land with access to fresh fruits and veggies!

CHAPTER 4: LNT POOPING...a crude chapter about shitting in the woods

Everyone poops.  If that makes you uncomfortable feel free to skip to the next chapter, but don't worry, I will not be detailing any specific BMs, just the basics of LNT pooping.

LNT: leave no trace.  There are some guidelines to pooping in the woods without leaving a trace.  Learning these guidelines from a man you just met in a formal class about pooping is hysterical.  I hope a bit of that hilarity comes across here (if you read this section in an Aussie accent, that may help).

Basically you have to dig a hole 6-8 inches deep.  If on the ocean, dig the hole below high tide line.  If near a river, go far enough away so you do not contaminate the water source (which is more about principle since you are already treating your water for bacteria from the ever present cow shit). You use neater as your toilet paper: smooth rocks-no jagged edges, coral-nice and porous, drift wood-larger than leaves which are not recommended due to the possibilities of rash from the plant, and not having a large enough barrier between hand and bum.  Upon finishing it is recommended that you use a stick to stir your poo with the soil which helps expedite the decomposition of fecal matter exponentially.  You then fill in your hole and cover it with leaves so no one could ever guess which corner of nature you used as your toilet.  Now that you are familiar with LNT pooping, I encourage you to sit back and relax the next time you are on a toilet and appreciate that you didn't have to plan 20-30 minutes ahead of when you would be able to poop.  You didn't have to make sure it was still light enought that you wouldn't lose camp when you went to the bathroom.  You didn't have to tell someone "Hey I'm going to take a shit.  If I am not back in 20 minutes I may be constipated, but send a search party just in case." You didn't have to suit up in socks, boots and gators so that wouldnt get a snake bite (on your feet-your bare ass could still be vulnerable).  You didn't have to traverse waist high grass, brambles and branches to find a remote toilet. You didn't have to spend 15 minutes crouched down digging a 6 inch hole in rock solid dirt.  You didn't have to squat over this tiny hole on tired legs that had already carried you and your pack so many miles that day. You didnt have to use rocks or sticks as toilet paper. And you didn't have to wash your hands by carefully administering liberal amounts of soap to just enough water to rinse it away, not wasting too much drinking water.  Just think about that the next time you casually sit back on the porcelain throne and flush away your worries.

CHAPTER 5: HYGEINE

When I first returned to Broome I was proud to boast that I had used shampoo once in the past six weeks, and that was the earlier side of the expedition.  Now, I know I am one of your dirtiest monkey friends, but even I was missing the regular use of shampoo.  I did 'bathe' throughout the course: during sea kayaking I was in the ocean every day for a daily salt bath--better than none.  While hiking it was highly encouraged (one small step away from forced) that you bathe daily for the sake of your tent mates.  The bathing however was not always ideal.  Several sites had luxurious waterfalls to shower under.  Most were shallow pools with large quantities of algae that left you curious about whether or not you were actually cleaner. I spent much more time standing outside of the pool debating getting in than i did in the water, but i always got in.  One day we spent far too long convincing ourselves bathing was necessary and fried our shoulders, packs felt good for the next few days. There was also the important bath time ritual of croc checking each pool to make sure you weren't hopping in with any beasts.  We didn't lose any great pools to crocodiles, but we had to abandon one excellent, deep pool on account of the kangaroo floating face down in the lagoon (poor little guy). For the sanity of my own nose I snuck in deodorant and it was worth the 60 extra grams I carried each day.  Being back in civilization I am happy to return to a healthy habit of showering at least once a week! ;)

Well blog followers (Mom and Dad), thank you for powering through my novel to find out what I've been up to for the last month.  It was a truly amazing, challenging adventure, and I'm kind of impressed I survived.  The rest of this trip should be a breeze.  From now on I will try to post more frequently, which will hopefully result in less lengthy entries.  Sometimes I just have really important things to say.

I bought my next plane ticket today, I'm headed to Bali tomorrow, time for a bit of vacation and to figure out what is next in somewhere a bit more affordable than Australia.

Much love and I miss you all!

Richelle Jean Rothman

FINALLY

I finally, after over a year of planning, am on my way to Australia. And for that whole year+ of planning, the only finalized plans I have are the first 45 days in Australia (and a concert ticket in Ireland at the end of October, you'll hear about that when the time comes). I have recovered from all of my tearful goodbyes and am now bursting with excitement at what is to come. Now, I will admit, the plane ride was no picinic. There were many screaming babies, and this small child that kept staring at me. And it was through United, those cheap bastards didn't even give us free peanuts even though we had to stop in LA to refuel turning the travel time into nine hours instead of just seven. But as soon as I got off the plane I was in good spirits because I was in Hawaii...am in Hawaii. And even though it is just a 14 hour layover I swam in the ocean, did yoga on the beach (where I made friends that joined me...thanks, already, Patrick for the yoga book), chatted with some guy about dinosaurs, surfing, and the whole world while we watched the sun set. And now at 9:30 p.m. on a Saturday night in Hawaii, I am going to bed, because it is 1:30 a.m. in Denver, the time zone I am still feeling after restless sleep and finally getting up at 5:30 this morning. I am full of yogurtland (for the last time in a while probably) and am ready to rest up for another 7+ hour flight and hopefully another epic layover in Sydney. This is just a treat though...don't get spoiled, I really will lose touch for 6 weeks. That just hasn't started yet.

So, I just re-read my blog from AmeriCorps. I was such a sap. I always painted a bright picture of what was happening. Not to say everything wasn't wonderful, but it wasn't quite the rainbows and unicorns I depicted. I had forgotten a lot already though, so it was a good thing for me and for you that I kept such a cheesy blog. And for that reason, I hope to keep another (better edited) blog for these upcoming travels. If you haven't read the first entry don't worry...those were just my initial ideas for my mom and dad to look into. The closer I get to leaving, the more I realize I don't have (or want) any really solid plans. Great ideas, but after Australia, it's all up in the air and you will just have to follow my musings religiously to know what I am up to. Cheers to the next grand adventure and better writing skills!

So I officially leave on June 30 for Broome, Australia. I make my way there by 19 hour layover in Honolulu, and similar layover in Sydney. The word layover may make it sound unpleasant, but I get one night in Honolulu and one night out in Sydney...not a bad way to start the trip!

I am taking a backpacking and sea kayaking course out of Broome that starts on July 4. Details can be found here:

http://www.nols.edu/courses/locations/australia/aubackpackingkayaking.shtml

After that I hope to zip up to Thailand to do some farming for about a week (wwoof ing or helpx) before heading to India to volunteer with a women's empowerment program. I am still ironing out the details, but The information about India can be found here:

http://www.volunteeringinindia.org/

As for Thailand and what happens after that...we'll see. These are the sites I'll be using to find stuff to do:

http://www.helpx.net/index.asp

http://www.wwoof.org/

Once my travels start I will do my best too keep you updated. In Australia we aren't allowed to use technology, so there may be a bit of a delay at the start, but after that you will stay well informed!

(Pictures will probably just be on facebook, mom and dad you should really look into that!)