The Good and the Bad

This happened back in Capadocia, Turkey, while I was staying at the cave hotel. https://wheresmike.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/my-favorite-place-to-stay-the-cave-hotel/   It was late in the afternoon, and I was sitting outside of the hotel office as I worked on a travelogue entry.  I was deep in thought when an extremely cute 8 year old girl tapped me on the leg, gave me a big smile, giggled, and offered me a strawberry.  I gave her an enthusiastic thank you, and she walked away.  Like a journalist trying to make a morning deadline, I went right back to tapping on my laptop.  About a minute later, she brought me another strawberry, giggled, and promptly walked away, and then a minute after that, brought a pretzel.  Mom was nearby with the snacks.

There was no sign of this stopping any time soon, so I put the laptop away and started talking to mom.  Once I did that, the girl started talking, but she still continued to giggle a lot.  Like I said, she was very cute.  And silly.  She spoke nearly perfect English.

The hotel owner showed up and suggested that we hurry to the top of the hill to catch the sunset.  The girl really wanted to go, but mom was not in good enough shape to make it in time, and asked if I would do the honors.  As always, I enjoyed the desert sunset, but what I liked more was seeing how awestruck my new friend was.

Mom showed up and was similarly impressed with the view.  There was amazing scenery and friendly company, which was made sweeter because they were from a place that the U.S. is not really on friendly terms with, but what I liked best was how unexpected it all was (fifteen minutes earlier I had my head buried in a computer).  At that point, it was my favorite moment of the trip.

We went back down the hill, and there we met up with dad, who invited me to dinner.   Even though I was looking forward to a quick dinner and then holing up in my cave (literally), I said yes.  The evening was going so well, and one of my travel rules is to accept all invitations.  This may have been the rare case when it would have been better to say no.

I chatted with dad while the gals were getting ready.  He told me that the girl had just survived brain cancer.  She dreamed of visiting Turkey in the event she pulled through, so they took her, even though he and his wife hated traveling.  Along these lines, he said that when they were visiting Istanbul, they ate exclusively in restaurants serving their native food.  He went on to mention another daughter, who was a doctor in the U.S., but did not like it there.  The problem was not Americans, but that she had to do too much for herself.  Back in their own country, they had servants to do the cooking and cleaning and, as I gathered from other parts of the conversation, everything else.  I’m glad I learned all of this, as it provided context for the events of the evening.

We headed off to dinner, and since this was a small town out in the country,  Turkish food was the only option.  We went to the fanciest place in town, and I could tell, immediately that these people were very used to being waited on.  The second a water glass was half empty, mom or dad would glare at the waiter, being nothing less than shocked that they had to wait more than five seconds for a refill.  I am not exaggerating, and the glasses are only one example.  They were always pleasant to me, but they were so rude to the staff that I felt very uncomfortable.

Eventually, the food came and was deemed inedible by my hosts.  Too salty.  Having eaten the same food the night before, I saw that one coming.  I liked it, but it was definitely on the salty side.  The unfortunate waiter tried in vain to explain that the food is supposed to be salty, but mom/dad (I can’t remember their names) did not understand that concept.  They thought the kitchen had screwed up royally and could not comprehend that their own preferences were the issue.  I gave the berated waiter sympathetic looks, which was about all that I could do.  Someone of a more official capacity eventually showed up, and the final result was that multiple items were removed from the bill.  It was late in the tourist season, the restaurant was basically empty, and I just had the sense that the loss would be noticed.

The girl also did not like her food.  She did not pout or cry, she just said she did not like it and did not eat it.  She got it in her head that she wanted “french fries”.  So after leaving the restaurant, we worked our way down the street, stopping at every restaurant along the way in search of fries.

It was the same scene at each place.  Dad would ask, in heavily accented English, if they served french fries.  Some poor Turkish restaurant owner would answer back, either in Turkish or even more heavily accented English, that he did not know what the hell they were.  Dad would look incredulous and ask again, offended by the person’s poor English, their lack of understanding as to what french fries were, and more so, their lack of said food item.  In general, Turkish men have serious expressions, but at about the one minute mark, the looks on these guys’ faces seemed to say “is this some sort of joke?”  And soon after that, they would notice me, clearly wondering “how the hell does this guy fit in?”

This went on for about a half an hour, until we found a grocery store.  While mom and dad interrogated the 16 year girls who were stocking the shelves, I wandered off to get some snacks for my big night in the cave.  Along the way, I spotted a bottle of ketchup, and on the bottle was a drawing of french fries.  I debated whether I should provide said drawing as a visual aid.  I could have just left the bottle on the shelf, and we would have been on our way.  But I felt like instigating.  These people were rude and they had cut into my cave time.  I did not know the specifics, but I knew that producing this picture would somehow result in them being even more pissed off.  Besides, I had already invested a lot in this search, and wanted to see just how far it could go.  Not just for my own curiosity, but for my readers’ enjoyment.  The things I do for you people.

So I showed the bottle to the clerks, who enthusiastically motioned for us to follow.  Hopes were high among locals and shoppers alike as the clerks led the party through the aisles, and hopes were dashed when one reached down into a freezer case and produced a bag of frozen french fries.  Mom made a wave of dismissal and dad unceremoniously dropped the bag back into the case.  The clerks had enough abuse and immediately walked away without a word.

With that, the search for french fries in the tiny town of Urgup, Turkey came to an end.  Dad seemed dejected as we headed back, and motioned for the rest of us to go on ahead while he walked slowly.  I stayed with the girl and mom until we got back.  I did not see them again, nor did I care to.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  I still liked the girl.  And despite what happened afterwards, our sunset on the hill remains one of my favorite moments of the trip.

A Tale of Three Subways

I have been fascinated by subways ever since I can remember.  Age four in New York City, disappearing down a stairway that goes below the street.  I thought the street was as low as you could go.  Entering with a special coin called a ‘token’.  So special, in fact, that it even had a hole in it.

Standing on the platform, looking at the mysterious hole that swallowed the tracks.  My imagination working overtime, wondering what lurked in the darkness beyond.  A foreboding world lit only by the glow of green or red semaphore lights, deadly electricity lying in wait only a step away, and a labyrinth of tunnels where one could wander seemingly forever before rejoining the surface dwellers.

The platform was eerily quiet, as interactions with strangers was against protocol.  The only sounds seemed to emanate from the unseen beyond.  Dripping water, the rumble of a distant train (or was it some sort of dragon?).  A subtle click sound as adjacent rails were pushed together was a secret signal that the train was coming, and the quiet of the station would soon be broken in spectacular fashion.  And once it arrived, there was nothing subtle about the train.  It was fast and powerful and it definitely was loud.  The high whine of metal wheels grinding on metal rail splitting your eardrums.  Steam brakes hissing and making that ‘ch-ch’ sound.  A horn and an unintelligible announcement by conductor.  The entire cacophony echoing throughout stations and tunnels built during a time when noise reduction was not even thought about.

The arriving train was covered in color. 1970’s New York graffiti. The big, lit up circles that told you what route it was.  A blue one with an ‘A’, ‘C’ or ‘E’.  A green one with ‘4’, ‘5’ or ‘6’.  They were secret codes, just like the signs around the stations  that said IND, IRT and BMT.

OK, I’m romanticizing the graffiti.  Most of it was nasty.  But every storied character has its high and low points, and the graffiti did help paint the scene of the sinister subway world.  My depiction of the colored circles is not a case of revisionist history, however.  They appeal of big colored lights is obvious.

The doors somehow opened by themselves, and I was in.  Hurtling through the underworld inside my protective capsule, I could catch quick glimpses of lonely passageways lit only by the occasional naked light bulb.  Who used them and where did they go? I would look at those recessed sections of the tunnel wall, the ones for the workers, zooming by and imagine being on the tracks as the train bore down on me.  Could I make it safely inside, or would I accidentally step on the third rail in my haste?  And even if I did make it, would it really be deep enough?

It was as a rocket ship, going a million miles an hour through the darkness.  It was a hissing, squealing monster that fed off of electricity.  Inside the car, the lights would sometimes go out, and I never knew how long that would last, though I did know that the train sometimes crashed (our next-door neighbor was a subway mechanic and occasionally showed us pictures of mangled, derailed trains).  I was only allowed fleeting views of the secret world where it lived, but that was just enough to make me wish I could explore the whole maze, in addition to the many places above ground places where it could take me.   I was thrilled and scared and curious.

Some NYC “subway” trains were elevated, and my Dad grew up in Brooklyn with the “El” going right past his bedroom window.

I loved visiting Grandma’s place, where I could see the train pass only a few feet away, and even feel the house shake.  Unfortunately, as a general rule, Grandma’s upstairs was off-limits.  I remember completely defying her one time, walking up the stairs as she scolded me to come back down.  This was unusual behavior for me, but such was my desire to see that train.  Usually, though, I had to settle for the view from below.

I like to check out subways in different cities, and NYC remains my favorite.  Newer systems, in particular, are just too sanitized to be as interesting.  In contrast, the New York subway is like a functioning museum.  I look at the mosaics and contemplate the millions of others who looked them as well, some of them over a hundred years ago (the system opened in 1904).  People going about their lives, most of which were different from mine, either by generation or background.  But all of us looking at those same mosaics.

I just do not react that way when I ride, for example, the DC metro.  It is newer, cleaner, and less crowded.  And for those reasons, I might even prefer it for a daily commute.  Maybe.  But it has no character.  Every station looks the same.  No decor, no color even.  Just the same grey, sound absorbing concrete everywhere.  About as much soul as a shopping mall.  A movie director would never say “Let’s set this film in DC so we can film the final scene on the metro.”  It just would not add to the drama.

Or the comedy.

After reading the above, you will understand that I just had to investigate the ‘subteo’ in Buenos Aires, which still operates old wooden cars on its ‘A’ line.  In fact, it uses the original cars from when it opened in 1913.

In addition to the wooden interior, these cars feature manual doors.  I noticed that locals sometimes open them shortly before the train completely stops and hop off the still moving train.

The best feature, by far, was that you could open the windows.  This was achieved by pulling on a little leather strap (which you can see on the right-side window).  I came into being in the age of closed subway windows, but read an account by author Stan Fischler, fondly recalling his rides on the NY subway back in the open air days.  As my train picked up speed, and the breeze blew in, I understood the appeal.  Fischler talked about riding the El, but no matter, the underground air was surprisingly fresh and sweet–definitely better than anything recirculated by an air conditioner.  The opened windows also meant one less barrier between me and that secret world that I longed to explore.  Life is unusually sweet whenever you are creating your own wind–zooming down hill on a bike, driving to the beach with the window down, in a convertible anywhere.  Or in this case, on a subway, traveling back in time.

I only needed to ride the ‘A’ for three stops to get to my dinner destination.  I wound up riding from one end to the other, despite the protests from my stomach, which was rumbling louder than the train itself.  My hunger did not deter me any more than my Grandmother did.

As we pulled into the last stop, I remembered reading that the best spot in the open air cars is the front window.  Before the train stopped, I was out the door, heading immediately for what would become the front car once the train changed directions.  Since I was effectively the first person to board the new train, I expected to get the prize seat without any problems.  Nope.  This other guy, perhaps the Argentinian Stan Fischler, was a step ahead of me.  He must have claimed his spot even before the train reversed direction.  I waited him out, and after a few stops, he got off.  And there I was, with the wind in my face, and the best view on the train.

Now I just need to figure out a way to wander around the tunnels.

The Most Beautiful Sight of the Trip

I did not think Lake Tekapoo could get any more colorful, but there it was.  Not just a rainbow, but the longest, most vibrant rainbow I have ever seen.  You could see every color band distinctly, as if it were drawn with magic markers.  Even the purple band was full.

I literally had trouble believing my eyes.

The Most Beautiful Place in New Zealand

If you have seen the other New Zealand posts, you realize the significance of the statement in the subject line.  According to the guide books and the information centers, Lake Tekapo is only a ¨B list¨ attraction, but locals strongly advised me to go.  Always listen to the locals.

The intense blue color of the lake is caused by light reflecting off of “Glacier Flour, minute particles of rock ground by ice.  Aside from the ridiculously blue lake, ridiculously purple lupin flowers were in bloom everywhere.

And there is a mountain hike, with some “lesser” scenery.

A Very Kiwi Christmas

This Christmas, my stocking overflowed with MUCH generosity, GREAT company, and, well . . . I don’t want to use the word “weirdness”.  I will just say it definitely was “different” in a lot of ways.

I met Jane and her daughter, Annika, on a dreadful overnight bus in Turkey, back in September.  Annika (a recent medical school graduate) was raised and still lives in New Zealand, and Jane is orginally from England, moved to New Zealand, and is currently working as a nurse in Saudi Arabia.  Within five minutes of meeting the two, Jane instructed Annika that I would be staying at her house when I visited New Zealand.  I was not sure what to make of such a hasty invitation (I wonder what Annika thought!), but I came to realize that Jane is very generous and simply does not take life too seriously.

I’m glad to report that Jane was in New Zealand for Christmas.  If you want to have a good party, start by inviting someone who worships wine.

This is Annika.  She is smart, and has a quirky sense of humor, qualities that are also often attributed to a certain travelogue author.   We got along very well.  Naturally, I asked why she was walking around with a crown on her head.  The answer:

“Because I won the Christmas Cracker.”

Now, I would estimate that (depending on the individual) I do not understand 10%-25% of what an Aussie, Kiwi or Brit is saying.  At a minimum, there are different words, but it gets tougher when the person uses a lot of slang or has a strong accent.  In many cases, it is easier for me to understand someone whose second language is English (Danish, Germans and particularly Dutch).

Usually, I just nod my head as if I understand these native “English” speakers.  But when a person, a doctor, no less, is walking around on Christmas Day with a bright yellow tissue paper crown on her head, I need to know why.  After expressing shock at my lack of knowledge, Annika explained the tradition of the Christmas Cracker.

Apparently, the Christmas Cracker is a cardboard tube made of three segments.

One person grabs a segment, another person grabs the opposite segment, and they pull.  There is a popping noise from a little cap, and the winner is the person with the longer piece of tube.  The victor collects the contents that fall out–a little prize, a slip of paper with a joke, and a crown.  Unlike the single wishbone, there are many Christmas Crackers, so you keep going until you have a room full of people with paper crowns on their head.  I won on my first try.

My prize was a candy heart, which tasted like one of those Necco candy hearts with the Valentine’s Day messages, only even more papery. The joke (which I had to read aloud to the group):

What do you call an Italian with a rubber toe?

Answer: Roberto

And I thought the weather was going to be the only weird, I mean, different, thing about this Christmas.  On the subject of weather, let’s step outside and take a look at Annika’s husband, Murray, who was in charge of cooking Christmas Dinner.

For Christmas, I bought Murray a rock.  And he liked it.  Well, he’s a geologist, so he should.  It was one of those rocks you crack open and there are crystals inside.  He works in a gold mine (and I mean IN it), so I’m sure he was glad to be out in the sunshine.  Merry Christmas, pass the sunscreen.

You will notice that the patio is all torn up.  Also in attendance were the contractor and his wife.  Just as I sometimes do not understand what people say, they don’t always understand me.  I introduced myself, and he absolutely could not tell if I was “Mart” or “Matt” or “Mack” until finally I feigned a Kiwi accent and said I was “Moichael”.  We had a big laugh over that, and it wasn’t our first.  Every gathering needs that big personality who keeps people laughing, and he was definitely it.

After the Kiwi Christmas Barbecue, and the requisite digestion time, we headed off to the beach.  Though an unusual Christmas activity for me, I was at least prepared for the event.  THIS, however, I did not expect to see:

I felt like going over to explain that sledding works a lot better on snow, but I did not want to come across as some American know-it-all.  Instead, they had to learn for themselves.

At the beach, we saw some penguins.

The endangered Yellow Eyed Penguins, to be exact.

As you can see, they really do have yellow eyes, so help me, yellow eyes, like another storied Christmas character:

Unlike Scut Farkas, the penguins won’t twist your arm and make you say “Uncle.”  As demonstrated by the sledders, there is no chance of being hit in the face with a snowball, either.  Instead, the Hoiho (Maori word) come out of the ocean, slowly waddle up the sand dunes to their nests, and deliver a Christmas dinner of regurgitated octopus to their chicks.  Personally, I would prefer the snowball.

After the beach, we went back and ate leftovers and dessert, drank New Zealand wine, and played Monopoly (the World Edition) under the glow of the Christmas tree and Christmas programming on TV.  We had a lot of laughs, accusing each other of cheating and tricking Jane (a monopoly rookie) into making bad deals.  We never did finish the game, as the food and the wine and the fun of the day caught up with us.  Instead, we unanimously decided to call it a tie, and to leave the dishes and mess of wrapping paper until morning.

On a typical Christmas, everyone gathers at my Aunt Diane’s house on Long Island, about an hour from Mom and Dad’s house.  By the time Mom and Dad and my brother Pete get home (around 8:30), I can barely keep my eyes open.  It is a specific Christmas night brand of tired that I savor, and frankly, I am having trouble describing it.  It’s a special combination of a stomach full of Mom’s Christmas cookies, a general sense of contentment, a lifetime worth of good holiday memories bubbling to the surface, warming up after being in the cold, and basking in the glow of some family time, which only happens once or twice a year.

This year, I definitely missed home and family and did not get that same tired feeling.  But at the end of the day, I was sleepy, and full, and very, very content.  So I guess this Christmas really was not as different as it seemed.

Being Zen in Nepal

Back when this World Tour was in the “I hope I get to do it” stage, there was one place that I really wanted to experience.  Nepal.  It had the ring of a mystical place, inconceivably far away.  A Shangri-la of mountains reaching to the heavens through which you would trek through harrowing passes to thousand year old monasteries.  I imagined some journey of the soul, inspired by a 150 year old Master.  Picture Luke Skywalker training with Yoda in the swamps of Dagoba.  Achiving “total consciousness”, inner peace, or whatever you wish to call it.

And you can do all that in Nepal, if you plan accordingly.  Which I did not.  Those monastaries are definitely there, but they take some finding, so you need to do some research in advance.  And the treks take more time than the seven days I had afforded myself.

Because of these constraints, I spent my time in polluted Kathmandu and the town of Pokhara, which has a lake, but that’s about it.  To everybody else, it is just a place to begin a trek to the real scenery of Nepal and bask in the glow of your trek when it’s over.  EVERYBODY who visits Nepal goes on a trek and absolutely loves it.  Not me.  I saw a lake.

I was reminded of the time I brought a friend to a really good Salvadorean restaurant and told him in no uncertain terms to order empanadas.  It’s a pretty straighforward instruction at a Salvadorean restaurant, but he thought that some fish dish buried in the back page of the menu would be better.   It wasn’t.  He repeatedly asked me to take him back “to the place where I ordered badly”, but I felt that his judgment was so egregiously poor that he deserved to be punished.  I denied his requests for eight years, and only provided redemption because I was moving from DC.

So rather than some mind altering experience, there was a lot of regret.  I was in disbelief that I could go all that way, to the one place that was most important to me, and not do the any of obvious things.  How could I blow it so badly?  I even considered whether kharma was paying me back for torturing my friend (there are a lot of Hindus in Nepal).  I was already thinking about when (if) I would be able to come back and do it right.  I figured it would be at least 2 years, but realistically, I knew it would be much more.  And if kharma had a hand in this, I would have to wait at least eight.

By necessity, I had to find something to do for four days.  There were a few standard attractions, like the hike to the Peace Pagoda, and watching the sunrise, but after that, all you could do was kill time.  So I would walk around the town and the lake, usually in the mist, which helped clear my head:

and on the one sunny day, I spent a few hours mesmerized by the glistening water.

There were a few people I met there who I kept bumping into for impromptu meals or drinks.  These included a tattoo artist from North Carolina and his girlfriend (a white girl with dreadlocks).  They would seem to be the opposite of me, on paper at least, but we hit it off well and had some really good conversations.  I was really tired after the Peace Pagoda hike, so for a few hours I hung out with the local couple who owned the little store at the bottom of the mountain.  I figured they would get a lot of company in that location, but in light of how enthralled they were to have me there, I’m guessing most people are too tired from the hike to sit and chat.

I fell into a great, great, great, great nighttime routine.  I would leave the room at six, get a massage ($10 for an hour), walk around town a bit, eat dinner, and be home before the nightly thunderstorm.  I would listen to the rain in the room and read until the power cut out, and then I would read some more by candle or flashlight until I fell asleep to the sound of the pounding rain.

Somewhere over the course of my four days in Pokhara, I stopped thinking about the treks I wasn’t doing and the return trip at some unforseeable future date, and appreciated what I was actually doing, in the present.  This is just what Yoda (or whatever non-fictional guru I may have met) would have taught me to do.  And as the Star Wars movies (or better yet, real-life people) would say, you need to follow your own path.  Trekking might be right for most people who visit Nepal, but it wasn’t for me.  At least not at that time.  I was tired from safari and all of the other travelling, and wanted to just sit in place for a while.  I didn’t research more or plan better because this trip is about living day-to-day, and looking at the real world beyond the computer screen.  Deep inside I knew these things, which is why I did what I did.  I just needed to let go of the regret to realize that fact (of course, the mist and the massages helped too!).

Sometimes, you can’t go looking for Shangri-la.  All you can do is be patient unti it finds you, just like the organic farm found me on my last night as my path crossed with someone else’s.  And the next day, as I stood in line at the airport, I knew that my Nepal experience was everything I had hoped it would be.

I had no regrets, even though I did not see so much as a single snow-covered mountain.  And maybe that’s why, about 30 minutes into the flight, when I wasn’t expecting it whatsoever, some of the Himilayas appeared above the clouds at 25,000 feet.  One of them was a little hill they call Everest.

Best day of the trip (So Far)

OK, I’m backtracking a bit with this one.  Back in Jordan, we took a tour of the Wadi Rum valley and spent the night out in the middle of the desert in a Bedouin Village.  It was a great combination of scenery, the raw fun of riding in a 4×4 and sleeping in a tent (I’ll refer you back to the post on the Cave Hotel) and most of all, the company.  I had a good group with people from all over that got along well and had already been together for a week.

Our wheels

The morning views.

Lunch in the shade, followed by a group nap (no picture of that-I was asleep too!)

The afternoon views.

Home for the night.

Starting dinner (cooked underground with hot coals).

Sun getting low . . .

. . . and lower . . .

. . . and once night fell,

dinner was served.

My Favorite Place to Stay: The Cave Hotel

Because of the underground cities that made the region famous, “cave hotels” have sprung up all over Capadocia.  Of course, they aren’t real caves, but are cookie cutter concrete rooms that are built into the mountainside to look like natural caves.   I thought the idea of sleeping in a fake cave was corny, and I would not have gone out of my way to book such a room.  But it was part of my tour, so I begrudgingly headed up the steep steps to my room. I mean cave.

The instant I entered my cave/room, I knew that I had it all wrong.  A primal comfort washed over me.  It was hot and bright outside, but in the cave it was dark and cool.  And quiet.  Very, very quiet.  Thousands of years ago, something instinctively told our ancestors that the cave was a safe place.  And all of these years later, somewhere buried in our genetic makeup, is that same instinct.  I felt it come to the surface.  No doubt about it.  It’s the same instinct that causes kids to make little forts out of couch cushions.

By the time I returned to the room at night, the weather had cooled considerably, as it does in the desert.  But the cave room didn’t change temperature, so now it felt warm.  And of course, it was still quiet.  So quiet, that as I was falling asleep, I head sounds that weren’t real.

That night, I slept very deeply.