I am lagging

I haven´t been very good about blogging on this trip, I confess.  When I rode the GS through Baja Mexico, I did much better and blogged just about every night.  Here, on this trip, I´m blessed with a great traveling companion who not only writes good posts on the blog but who distracts me from writing.  I would much rather be out exploring with her than sitting at a computer.

No offense but them´s the breaks.

I do plan on writing some posts but they may have to be more reflective. We´re in Cartagena, Colombia and it´s pretty fabulous out there.

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iPhone, iLike, iMiss

A little over a week ago our iPhone was stolen. This was more than a disappointment, and it took a good three days for us to get over it and just accept the fact that it, along with A LOT of personal information, is simply gone.  Such a bummer.

Though I was never a big fan of it, I certainly became a believer on this trip. We used that contraption as our currency calculator, stereo (music speakers) in our hotel rooms, back-up camera when we lost our other two cameras, computer whenever we found free wi-fi to email people or get information at the drop of a hat, mobile Lonely Planet guides (pdf downloads) throughout multiple countries (serving as a map, restaurant and lodging guide), a watch/clock in multiple time zones, as well as a phone in which to call home (via Skype) whenever we found free wi-fi. The thing was a brain. and an expensive one at that. We quickly put a request in with Apple to have the information swept clean the next time someone connects our iPhone to the internet. Yes, we did file a police report. and yes, we do have traveler´s insurance. No, we don´t know how much or if we will get reimbursed. Oh, and don´t forget to add Casey´s missing luggage and our other digital camera to the traveler´s insurance claim (all of which we are required to have RECEIPTS for in order to get reimbursed)! Part of the adventure I suppose…

We are now in Cartagena, Colombia. A mere 3 hours ahead of San Francisco time. Though without our iPhone, we now have a SIM Card loaded in our unlocked cell phone (thanks again Fran – this is saving us). So for those of you who don´t mind paying a little extra to send or receive a text from us, please pop us a few lines via text (or email one of us) to give us permission to ping you via text message from Colombia. We think of our family and friends often. Here is our phone number to text in Colombia for the next 4 weeks:

+011-300-393-1775

Besos.

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This Little Piggy

This little piggie went to Africa.

This little piggie stayed home.

This little piggie had a parasite.

This little piggie had none.

This little piggie went wee wee wee, all the way to Argentina.

Many questions and concerns about Casey’s parasite. Little pinkie toe seems fine. No itch. No worm (as far as we can see, or Casey can feel). Wound healed. We will keep an eye on it though. We have pretty much resigned to the fact that we’ve picked up lots of “friends” on our RTW and will likely get a full body check upon our return. I remember taking my microbiology class when I returned from Africa (back in college) and my prof got all excited when she found out that I had been in Africa a few months prior…she wanted me to give her a stool sample so she could check out all the parasites I had picked up! Can you imagine? Giving MY stool sample for the lab class to rummage through under microscopes. Good golly. Did I ever tell you I’m a germ freak?

We’re in Buenos Aires and finally over our jet lag. The trip from Australia to Argentina was probably our roughest leg. We’ve rented a little apartment in downtown Buenos Aires (Recoleta) and are enjoying our own space. Today we are heading off for a day trip to Uruguay (another country that was not on our original itinerary). It is supposed to be a quick 2-hour ferry ride to the town of Colonia so we figured, what the heck.

c

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Our Sunday in Sydney

Sundays are supposed to be a day of blissful rest, no?  For some reason, even though Casey and I are jobless and without any specific place we have to be at any given time (except when we need to catch a flight), we have found that we still need those days of rest.  Traveling can take a lot out of a person, and constantly packing our bags, trying to think one day ahead to figure out where you’ll sleep, what you’ll see, how to get internet, wash your clothes, store your luggage, find clean and drinkable water, obtain local currency in cash (when your bank limits your daily withdraws), and communicate with the people around you who often don’t speak your language.  Sigh… There seems to be a constant underlying feeling of stress we carry and it can get tiring to say the least.  Believe it or not, one of the most difficult parts of this trip has been resting.  One, to give ourselves the grace to stop trying to see everything in whichever country or city we are visiting, and two, to find our own space where we can really stop and relax.

Sundays are our day of rest back home.  We sleep in, walk down to Farley’s (our neighborhood coffeehouse) to get our hot chocolate and egg-bagel, go to church, grab a late lunch and spend the afternoon at home resting, taking a long walk in our hood or watching a movie and making dinner.  When Casey finally moved back to the City this past year, I was in the midst of heavy training for my triathlons at the time, but I made a very specific effort to reserve Sunday’s for rest.  For this I am grateful, because it became one of the few constants in our fairly busy lives, and became somewhat of a sacred morning and routine that we came to love.  We miss this.

So when our Sunday in Sydney came about, we decided to stop.  To rest.  We had a nice hotel; the same hotel; for 3 blissful nights.  A space of our own for what had become an extended amount of time – anything over two nights has become “extended” for us.  When we first arrived I quickly unpacked every single item of my suitcase, putting away clothes in drawers, hanging them on hangers and setting out my toothbrush and toiletries in the bathroom like I owned the place.  Now mind you, we only had four days in Australia – an unexpected and extended lay-over to a continent that was not on our original itinerary but we happily took advantage of – of which to see what we could.  There was much to do and see in Sydney and beyond, but on this Sunday we decided to rest.

We slept in late (mmmm).  Then lay around (in bed) for another solid hour before considering getting up.  We watched TV from bed – a no-no in our household – then moseyed up to the gym and worked out.  Took a long shower.  Ate in.  Watched the news.  Checked our emails.  Left our clothes on the floor.  Giggled.  Lay back in bed.  It was crazy nice.  The best part?  We didn’t leave our hotel until 3 p.m.!  We then took a long walk down to the water, had lunch overlooking the infamous Sydney Operahouse, hit the Museum of Contemporary Art for quick look and then went to the Aquarium to see Australian crocodiles and sharks.  Home early enough to plop ourselves in front of the TV (yes, again) to watch a movie.  Sundays in our household.  Much needed.

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We are the Majority

Imagine for a moment a place where cars yield to bicycles.  Where there is a large designated lane (the same size as a car lane) for two-wheeled modes of transport, specifically bicycles, scooters and motorcycles, on the right side of every two-lane road, and a separate single lane designated for cars, trucks and/or vans.  There is no road rage from cars and trucks trying to run us cyclists (bi-cycle or motor-cycle) off the road.  There is a common respect for each other.  Everyone merges in the round-abouts, which are a dime a dozen because street lights are very few and reserved only for the larger cities.  When a car decides to turn right, s/he must work their way through the traffic of the cyclists.  Imagine the amount of emissions that are saved by the larger use of motos and bicycles and lesser use of the gas-hogged cars and SUVs that seem to be limited here.

Then imagine the smiles on Casey and my faces as we ride motos through the hills of breath-taking countryside and mountains of the central highlands of Vietnam, and ride bicycles along the coast of the South China Sea.  Freedom.  Beauty.  And each of us reunited with something we love and miss.

In Vietnam, us two-wheeled modes of transportation are the majority.  Geesh, where have I been??

Casey on a moto-taxi

We knew that we were headed to somewhere good when we showed up for our Vietnam Airlines flight to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) a mere 50 minutes for the international flight departed in Singapore, and the flight attendants just smiled, handed us our boarding passes and told us to “have a nice flight.”  We hadn’t missed a flight yet (and this being our 33rd flight on our RTW we felt pretty proud of ourselves), but we had already resigned to the fact that we were certainly going to miss THIS flight.  We just didn’t time our transport to the airport very well, and I think we were having a tough time leaving Singapore where we had finally felt some culture relief.  Nonetheless, for those of you who may not travel internationally much, it is a standard requirement to be checked-in for your flight at least 2 hours prior to the departure time at a minimum.  So us arriving under 2 hours, and even worse, UNDER 1 hour, was pretty much a guarantee that they were not going to let us on the plane.  And to add flame to the fire, if we did happen to get on the plane, it was more than likely that our baggage would never make it with us.

Thankfully, we were taken care of.  We made it, bags and all!

We spent time in Saigon by enjoying the incredible national and international food (from Vietnamese pho to Spanish tapas), taking in the night life with the tourists (with a glass of wine/scotch at the top of the Sheraton overlooking the city, and hit the infamous dance club “Apocalpse Now”), experienced the hustle and bustle of busy city life (jumped on moto-taxis and sho

Boiling the silk worms and unwinding their silk.

pped at the markets) and took a different look at the history of the American War (as we call it, the Vietnam War) by visiting the War Remembrance Museum.  In the central highlands of Vietnam we spent three nights in the mountain town of Da Lat where life was cooler in temperature and the sun was shining sans city smog.  We rented motos here, and explored the countryside on our own, whizzing past the locals and taking in the smells and sights with the wind hitting our faces.  It was so lovely.  We got lost a few times, stumbled upon a few villages, found a silk making farm and watched how silk was made (from hatching silk worms to the weaving of fabric), scooted past the trucks up the mountains, stopped for a late afternoon café and racked in about 120 kilometers or so.  It was so fun!  This is also where we rented a few bikes, wandered the large local markets, botanic gardens and partook in one of the better Vietnamese meals we had.

The drive from Da Lat to the coast of Nha Trang was probably the most beautiful drive we have taken on this trip – albeit the most windy and nauseous imposed.  Glorious lush green mountains with views that would not quit, on well-paved roads and in a comfortable bus no less!  We then spent a few days on the beach where we took long walks, rented more motos and bicycles and saw a few of the local temples and sights.  We also treated ourselves to a traditional mud bath at a spa up in the mountains as we watched the sun set.  We had to pinch ourselves…nope, we’re awake!

The bottom line on our experience here: we fell in love with this country.  It was an unlikely place for us, during an unlikely time (travel tired) for us to feel this way, but we have loved our visit in Vietnam.  We were sorry we hadn’t more time to stay (we already bought our next 3 flights back to Latin America and it was ridiculously priced to change them) but we are hopeful that we will return again some day.  It is a gem.

Yes, that is a mud bath we're in!

Saigon at night

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$50 Pad Thai

(flashback: 15 January 2010)

Lets see, on our way to Australia we have a 6-hour layover in Bangkok (Thailand).  We’ve both been there before but have a hankering for some pad thai, one our of favorite Thai dishes.  Lets do it!

We land, disembark and make it through customs with about 5 hours left to spare.  We scramble through the very large (new) international airport, cash out a $50 traveler’s check into Thai Baht currency and catch a $16, 45 minute, cab ride into the center of Bangkok.  The entire cab ride into the city we are counting our remaining baht (putting aside another $16 for our cab trip back to the airport) and the minutes/hours until we need to be back at the airport to catch our connection to Sydney.  We are dropped off at the Grand Palace, of which closes in less than an hour.  We push our way through the very large crowds of tourists in the heat and humidity to the front gates to see the price of entry to be 750 baht for two people – $23 US.  We haven’t enough money left to get in!  Classic.  We take a few photos at the gate.  Yes we made it to the gate of the Grand Palace.  We putter out to the streets and find ourselves some authentic thai street food – we found our pad thai we’ve been craving, some other unknown deep-fried-goodness, and some thai ice cream to fill our hungry and tired tummies.  All for the cost of a mere 70 baht (a little over $2)!  With less than three hours to spare on a Friday afternoon in traffic-ridden Bangkok, we finally catch a cab back to the airport…

Upon arrival and the realization that we will make our connection, we then scramble around the airport trying to figure out how to spend up our remaining thai baht that will be useless in Australia, and not worth exchanging back into dollars.

About an hour-and-a-half and $50 spent on authentic pad thai in the streets of Bangkok, a few laughs, a bit of stress, and a memory we will not soon forget.  Totally worth it.

Grand Palace

Made it all the way to the GATE of the Grand Palace but we didn't have enough money to go in! Wearing Casey's sweatshirt to cover my bare shoulders (Buddhist temple).

Our pad thai in the making.

What we call "deep-fried-goodness"

Thanks Bangkok.  It was lovely.

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Late night in Sydney

Earlier this week in Sydney I finally tried to figure out what was going on with my right pinky toe. It’s been itching for awhile now and had begun to bleed a bit near the base of the nail. So, like any redblooded male I woke up at 1:30 am and, equipped with what little tools I had at my disposal, began to “dig around.” What I discovered was that I have been carrying around a parasite of some kind that had burrowed into my toe and taken up residence. The little guy (who consequently had gotten big) had created a cave for himself in the upper part of my toe and had been there for I’m not sure how long. By the time I got to him he had numbed up the better part of my toe and become about an inch long.

I am saving you more details and certainly pictures of the event. Suffice to say it was a tug of war pulling him out with tweezers and both of us lost: he got broken up into pieces and I got left with parts of him still in my toe. Field surgery can have such complications. But I seem to be healing up well, though in the back of my mind is the sneaking suspicion that he’s still in there regenerating. A round two of Casey v. Parasite Toe Worm may very well be in the making.

We’re in Buenos Aires now, recovering from a long day of air travel. Sydney, Auckland, Buenos Aires in one leg. Our little apartment we’ve rented for the nine days we’re here is settling in nicely. More adventuring awaits. Parasites or no.

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Orchids

My favorite flower is the orchid.  From the moment Casey found this out about me, he has wanted to take me to see the National Orchid Gardens in Singapore.  So this was our original motivation in our quick stop-over in Singapore.  And boy was it worth it!

Absolutely gorgeous.  What an amazing experience to walk through streams and streams of these incredible flowers, where they blossom and grow like grass in the perfect temperature and humidity here.  Back home in SF, C and I adopted about 15 or so orchids and began our first attempt at building our family and seeing how good we can do with trying to keep something (green) alive.  This is a trait I did not, I repeat, did not inherit from my mother – she, is an amazing gardener and I have always grown up with fresh fruits and veggies from our garden and our home was filled with pretty plants and blooming flowers.  I, on the other hand…well, lets just say that my thumb is not green.  For those of you who do know about orchids, we definitely challenged ourselves in choosing these creatures to start with.  They are pesky little fellas, who are difficult (in my opinion) to keep alive.  We have re-potted them twice and already made multiple trips to our local orchid shop, the Green Thumb, for consultation.  Of course this was all in a matter of just a few months of receiving them.

We now have dreams of a home full of blooming orchids and or own personal orchid greenhouse in our yard (or deck).  Wherever we land after this trip is over (SF, Africa, Asia, Nor-Cal or SB), we hope to be surrounded by these beautiful flowers.  They have become reminders of the Asia leg of our RTW because we saw them everywhere in Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand (we had a 6 hour lay-over in Bangkok – more on that later).  Loved it.   Other flowers that have become reminders of our RTW, especially the Africa leg: plumeria (a new favorite of mine), hibiscus (Saw many of these in both Africa and Asia) and wild poinsettias (all over in Ethiopia).  We really didn’t see many flowers in Europe – it was late Fall at that point and we were dealing with a big storm that we kept trying to outrun (or out-fly).  The closest we can get to a reminder of the Europe leg would be olive trees, which is another growing dream for Casey.

Speaking of our orchids in San Francisco…hey Fran, how are our orchids back at 328?  Props to you for taking care of them for us.

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Culture Shock or Culture Comfort?

The question I asked Casey as we moved into our second day in Singapore: “Is it bad that I don’t feel any reverse culture shock here?”

We only stayed two nights in Singapore, and it was nicely placed in our itinerary after a month-and-a-half in Africa and sandwiched between one week in Bangladesh and another in Vietnam.  To be honest, I wasn’t that excited about stopping in this country because it is so much like America – very modernized and developed.  So I felt a bit like we were giving up our diehard-ness by reverting to a place so much like our own culture.  Little did I know how much it would be needed?

Is it bad to feel a sigh of relief when we’re able to finally put toilet paper in the toilet, brush our teeth with water from the faucet again and eat a fresh vegetable salad with raw veggies and no taste of bleach? Or when we bask in the joy of lying in clean, stark white, soft, machine dried sheets on a plush comfy bed with exceptionally fast wireless internet? Hmmm.

I mean, this morning I accidentally got water in my mouth during my shower.  I quickly started coughing and spitting it out with visions of explosive diarrhea already in my head, when it dawned on me “I can DRINK this water if I want to!”  Sigh…

With almost three months on the road and away from the comforts of your own culture, there are some things that can certainly become weary on you.  We live out of suitcases, pack our bags every two days on average, and are constantly approached by people asking us to buy something.  We can’t remember our last good hot shower with full water pressure, and it seems like ages since we’ve both seen the other wearing something other than the 5 main outfits we’ve brought on this trip.  If we’re really honest with ourselves, we have to admit that our guard is constantly up (incredibly high) with visions of everyone out to rip us off or take advantage of us because of the color of our skin or the country we are from (sadly, this comes from experience).  Survival.  Plain and simple.  But thankfully, in Singapore we have been able to let our guards down a bit.  And it was certainly needed.  For three days, we haven’t had to psyche ourselves up to barter before walking into a store to purchase something we need – there are price-tags here, with lovely fixed prices!

It has been nice for us to be in a culture that is so near our own, and remember the things that we do appreciate about being American. Yes, that includes having lots of ‘things’ and the ability to purchase them when needed, enjoying immediate satisfaction quite often, and having access to top quality conveniences.  But it also means things like knowing your transportation will come when it is scheduled to, being able to find (and everyone utilizing) a garbage can, finding a public restroom without having to carry toilet paper with you, or enjoying basic public health such as clean and drinkable water from the tap.  I often think of being an American as a negative thing, because for those of you who don’t travel much, we don’t really have the best reputation out here (enough said – I won’t go into details on this subject as that is another blog in itself!), but we are incredibly blessed in so many ways.

Last night we walked into a pharmacy and hold back our excitement (and lower our voices) when we saw the words “Neutrogena” “Colgate” and “Band-Aid.”  Oh the joy of those things familiar and the access to get it when you need it!  Casey had to hold me back because I wanted to stock up on everything.  “Don’t we need floss mi amor?”  “or, how about some good face-wash?”  Not only that, but we’ve had to wean ourselves from this strange hoarding mentality that we’ve slowly adopted over the past 3 months.  I think we’re a little gun-shy about losing baggage again, and/or being stranded because we’ve experienced these things already.  So whenever we get an extra napkin or food snack in an airplane, we quickly stash it in our bag (making sure no one is looking) with thoughts of using the napkin as emergency toilet paper and the mini-bag of peanuts as our lunch in the very near future.  Some hotels we’ve stayed in are nice enough to have disposable shampoos and soaps, of which we also steal for future use, especially when they are quality brands.  When we got to our hotel in Khulna Bangladesh we practically did a summersault when we were given complementary cotton buds, a.k.a. Q-tips!  It’s a bit embarrassing but true.

We were finally in a place where we had access.  Access to things that haven’t had in what seemed like so long.  Things familiar.  We let out a sigh of relief.  We no longer needed to save up every little thing with feelings of depravation.  Perhaps we’re falling back into our gluttonous American mind-set for these three short days?  To that I say, “oh well”.  We deserve a travel break.  Singapore might be a bit over the top – they have the timeliness of subways and cleanliness of streets that makes the United States look pretty behind in the times – but it came at the perfect time for us.

The best giggle that an outsider might’ve overheard was when we were having lunch at a restaurant in downtown Singapore:

Casey says to Cara, “Baby, smell the napkins.”  She puts it up to her face, taking in a long and deep inhale.  Their eyes light up as they smile from ear to ear at each other: “Ahhh.”  …and their minds escape to the smell of clean clothes back home.

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Vietnam

Stepping off the plane in Ho Chi Minh City I had a lot of complex feelings.  The Vietnam War (or as the Vietnamese call it, the American War) still has a fair bit of psychological weight on our national consciousness and I, as a product of that consciousness, feel it in me as well.  When I mentioned we’d be going to Ho Chi Minh City a friend said to me before the trip began, “You mean SAIGON?!”  He had spent three years fighting in the Vietnam War and the war was still very real in that singular moment, 35 years later.

Not only did I have this on my mind but I expected a backward Communist country that was still lost somewhere in the early 1970s, culturally lodged between Cambodia and North Korea.  I had heard about how beautiful Vietnam was and that it has become somewhat of the tourist “flavor of the month” but that didn’t translate into anything substantive for me.  I am not sure why this was but it was true nonetheless.

In the short week we were in this small SE Asian country a lot changed for me in respect to how I see Vietnam.  Mist covered mountains, terraced rice patties spilling down rolling hills, wide sweeping beaches, honest smiles on friendly faces, robust capitalism at work everywhere, and signs of development and progress as far as you can see will do that.  The sheer force of economic energy in the country is breathtaking.  In Saigon (which the southerners still prefer to Ho Chi Minh City), I felt I could have been in any progressive, modern city.  Walking through the cities of Saigon, Dalat and Nha Trang I felt very far from the Communism I expected to find.  This country is communist in government, maybe.  But capitalism reigns here and somehow they blend a communist political system with a capitalist economic system and believe me, it works.  And like China they are coming into their own as an economic power (and thus political/global).  They took a beating in the global downturn like everyone else but posted the fastest growing economy in the world in 2009.  Make no mistake, Vietnam is on the global economic map and seems from my standpoint to be going nowhere but up.  Infrastructure development is everywhere and the forward momentum there is palpable.

We spent a few days in Saigon and then hopped on a plane to Dalat in the central highlands.  The city of Dalat is nestled in the mountain range that rises north of the Mekong Delta and runs northwards toward the southern plateaus of China.  Dalat, simply put, has become one of our favorite places.  Needless to say we fell in love with it and the vast farmland surrounding the city.  We rented scooters one day and with full tanks of gas rode off deep into the countryside.  We wound through valleys and over tree-lined ridges, making a long descent into an area renowned for its wine and vegetables.  While riding around we stopped into a silk factory and watched how silk cocoons are unraveled and spun into spools of thin thread, then woven into cloth.  It was fascinating to watch and my curiosity compelled me to poke through the large piles of silk grubs that had been evicted (by boiling, no less) from their expensive wrappings.  We took our time getting back to Dalat and often stopped along the road to take pictures and soak it in.

I could write much more about our experiences and the moments that stand out.  There were many.  On our hearts is a real desire to return.

I left with a feeling that I felt much more comfortable in Vietnam than I ever realized I would.  Even though I have traveled a fair bit internationally I still have a pretty simplistic view of the world, particularly the world outside of what we call the “developed” world.  My perspective on what is “developed” and, say, “underdeveloped” is evolving into something I’m not sure of yet.  I am not so convinced that these terms mean anything anymore.  I’ve seen and experienced countries that are very advanced culturally and less so economically, and seen economically powerful countries become less developed culturally. I love my country but as I experience many other countries, cultures, frameworks and paradigms – and see how they live in the world better than my own – I feel concern for my country’s future.  Much has been written on the decline of America and I see the beginnings of it through the lens of being “outside” during this trip.  Unbridled consumerism, economic entitlement and disregard for the inalienable rights of other countries have robbed us of something vital to the good in our national consciousness.  I see how too often we take pride in being the wealthiest nation (and doing all we can to sustain that distinction) far more than utilizing that wealth to be a force for good in the world.  The wars we’ve fought in the last few decades have had little to do with what is right and more to do with what is politically or economically self-interested.  A symptom of our state of affairs is the overall desire to return to “the way things were” before the economic crisis – rather than getting to the core issues of our collective failure to spend less than we make.  The economic and social trajectory we are on is simply unsustainable.  Being an American will have to become once again something more than a birthright to revel in indiscriminate consumerism and national self-aggrandizement.  We will change or we will decline.  I see no other way ahead.

Vietnam didn’t teach me this but it certainly made it more clear in my mind.  America may have lost the Vietnam War in 1975 but in 2010 the American ideals of capitalism – and even the form of democracy that comes with consumer choice – have won, and won big.  Even English is quickly becoming the second national language to foster this drive towards a unique type of democracy via a capitalism with a communist heart.  And America may have things to learn from Vietnam as Vietnam navigates this transition towards a market economy that has built-in limits due to the ideals of the common good.  How will these two countries, once at war and now almost kin, overcome their respective – yet related – challenges?

Stay tuned.

Me, post head shave

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