a unique perspective on this crazy world

Archive for the ‘travel stories’ Category

a thirst for knowledge

Once upon a time that phrase was used by a teacher in conjunction with me.  It surprised me at the time.  I just assumed everyone wanted to know everything 🙂  One of the reasons Sarah and I became friends was because she was one of the first people I met who had felt really sad when she first realized she would never be able to read all the books in the library.

But you have to move past life’s disappointments 🙂  And nowadays there is google and Wikipedia and learning new stuff is a lot faster!  This week I learned about military mail 🙂  My new friend Björn has been temporarily deployed to Afghanistan and he hinted that a package would be more exciting than email.  And that he liked cookies with chocolate chips…

Which definitely increased his chances of getting a package 😉 Those who know me well will know I am kind of famous for baking chocolate chip cookies.  They aren’t very German though so not sure where he encountered them.  When I lived in Germany I had my mom send me chocolate chips for my birthday so that I could make cookies to remind me of home.

He told me the address was valid but it looked a bit strange so I went on-line to make sure it seemed right before heading off to the post office.  That’s when I learned about the Feldpost and Darmstadt.  Feldpost dates back to the eighteenth century, Prussia and the Seven Year’s War.  The coding can disguise the location to which the package is being sent – and military personnel get breaks on the price of postage.  Each country has its own military mail service.

Writing the address brought back memories of Frank.  Given that Frank tried to drown me early in our relationship, it was surprising that we became such great friends.  He didn’t mean to drown me 🙂  I met him on the UN Pilgrammage for Youth sponsored by the Odd Fellows and Rebekahs back when I was just barely 17.  He was from San Diego.  He didn’t realize there were people who didn’t know how to swim so he threw me in the deep end of the pool without any evil intentions.  Luckily I had managed to teach myself how to dog paddle on my yearly visit to the lake and got out of the pool without serious injury.  I think he was more freaked out than I was.

And almost dying does increase your bond with others… He ended up falling for another girl on the trip but I have always been better at being a friend than being a girlfriend so we ended up writing for quite a long time after the trip and he ended up in the army.  His life story was never quite clear and he was the first person I met who seemed like someone from a novel – mysterious, with secrets and a history – very different than the naïve little prairie girl I was back then.

But that trip also brought me to New York City for the first time.  To the “Mean Streets”, going broke, hookers in Times Square New York of the ‘70s.  It was the “real world”.  And I was in it.  There was so much to learn.  To see.  To experience.  My thirst for knowledge grew even greater.  It was actually a reference letter for that trip that inspired the words.

Thanks to the wonders of google and Wikipedia I see the program is still going strong, having started in 1949 as a celebration of the concept of the United Nations.  It was one of the first experiences that profoundly changed my life, far beyond just the thirst for knowledge.

UN Pilgrammage for Youth

This unique Educational Program was established by The Sovereign Grand Lodge Independent Order of Odd Fellows in 1949 when the United Nations was just a four year old “toddler.” Annually the UN Pilgrimage brings together high school students from around the world to study and learn about the United Nations. For young adults interested in world affairs, international relations, economics and/or political sciences this is an opportunity of a life­time to observe the United Nations in person while exchanging views on education, politics and religion. Students tour the United Nations building and listen to behind-the-scenes briefings conducted by specialized United Nations agencies and departments including Ambassadors, Minister Counselors and Country Representatives. Each student (delegate) will participate in in-depth discussions with other young people from around the world as well as make new and lifelong friends. In addition, students experience one of the greatest cities in the world: New York. Attending a Broadway play; St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Rockefeller Center and much more.

 

Category:

life philosophy, travel stories

believing your own press…

Posts have been floating around in my head but it has been intense trying to catch up with my real life… goal is to post something daily… we shall see…

Last week there was an article in the Georgia Straight about Bruce Poon Tip.  Richard Branson was also here talking about himself 🙂

Bruce is not as famous as Richard but does seem to also have a large personality.  I met him once, way back in 1992, when he was at a travel show to promote his fledgling venture – the Great Adventure People.

I knew who he was because I had been to Thailand the year before on my very first foray into the developing world – an Intrepid Travel tour of Thailand.  I had been raised in the school of safe travel – stay at Best Westerns, only travel where they speak English, don’t walk the streets at night…  And then I started dating some guy who had grown up urban in Toronto, taking the subway to school on his own at a young age.  And we went to Montreal for the weekend.  And Mike made me stay in some simple bed and breakfast that he just picked at random.  Why weren’t we at a Best Western where we would be safe!?!  Because we had arrived by train, not car, and were students with almost no cash and no credit cards…

And it was great!  The lady didn’t speak English so it wasn’t a warm and fuzzy experience but it was totally fine and cost $10!  Mike changed my life is so many ways and that lodging choice was only one of them.

I became the kind of girl whose first trip to Europe went something like this… my needy Australian boyfriend who had gone off alone on his eight month tour of Europe because we had just met and I couldn’t afford to travel for eight months called and enticed me into coming to London for a week.  I did the math and the Wardair flight would cost next to nothing, we could stay with his friends in Earl’s Court sleeping on the sofa and we could eat in pubs for a few pounds… so I got my very first passport and arrived at Gatwick with a daypack… practicing packing light for the three month backpacking journey I would join him on a few months later.

Scott got me to backpack through Europe… when it came time to travel back to Canada from Oz, I turned the tables on him and said I wanted to do this “adventure tour” through Thailand.  Having scrambled through Europe on $50 a day carrying my own pack for several kilometres on a regular basis had turned me into the kind of girl who doesn’t do “group tours” 😉  But I knew Thailand was not Europe and a little caution might be in order… so the Intrepid tour sounded like the perfect compromise.  We would travel like a local and it would cost almost nothing but we would have someone who knew his way around in charge of the official details…

http://www.intrepidtravel.com/?promo=CanadaSEM

Scott was a weenie so he was totally freaked at my choice but I told him he had two choices – come with me or meet me in Vancouver once I got there two or three months later…  I’d begun to realize that I had dealt with all the hard stuff when we were travelling in Europe and he was an appendage rather than this boy protecting me from the world so I could conquer Asia without him 🙂

He came along – but by then I realized I was the protector and he was just tagging along…  I also learned that maybe you SHOULD pay for the airport transfer… although you will never get a story that way… The tour cost about $10-15 per day so an airport transfer at $30+ dollars seemed outrageous to me.  Having never been to the developing world, I surmised that we were arriving mid-day so I had tons of time with daylight to find the obscure guesthouse in Chinatown in Bangkok where the tour began.

I am obsessive about details so I had a map for the guesthouse, the name in both English and Thai script… what could go wrong?  Maybe the fact that the taxi driver was likely illiterate… and most tourists crazy enough to just rock up to the airport in Bangkok and organize their own taxi just wanted somewhere to sleep…

So we spent the next two hours driving around Bangkok with the taxi driver trying to drop us off at random guesthouses… me asking for someone who spoke English, trying to figure out how to get out of this infinite loop… and telling Scott to stay in the taxi!  Cause we had paid a flat fee at the airport so I could have the taxi drive us around for hours…

I kept showing the driver the map and the name of the guest house but it became obviously that this strategy was going nowhere and we somehow needed to find OUR guesthouse or we wouldn’t make it onto the tour.  All my preparation started to pay off.  I decided our guest house seemed pretty close to a railway station.  And I might be able to get the taxi driver to understand THAT destination.  And at least then we would know where we were!

It worked.  And luckily I had read copious amounts about Thailand before we arrived so spied in one of the shops a map of Bangkok that had been written in English by Americans and came recommended by my guidebook.  I checked it out… our guest house was on the map!  So I bought it.  And told Scott we were going to walk toward the Chao Phraya River with our backpacks cause it appeared our guest house was on the river so it should be easy to find.

Well… that was when I learned that if you wander the poorer parts of a developing city, the signs are not going to be in English!  And some languages are easier to translate if you are an English speaker… Thai, Arabic… not so much… I just went for counting the number of streets between the railway station and the river!  I was pretty sure we were on the right street but the numbers didn’t add up… we walked past the spot where the guest house should be using the street address.

What to do?  Channel my instincts growing up in the bush… There were a bunch of vehicles in a parking space at the location where the street address would suggest our guest house should be.  It looked like there might be a river if you squinted through the morass of vehicles blocking the view.  So I boldly told Scott, “I think we need to walk through the maze of trucks toward what I think is the river and I bet we will find the guest house where our tour starts.”  And Sherlock would have been proud 😉

If I hadn’t managed to find the starting point for the tour, I would have never known about Bruce.  His name came up when we got to the Golden Triangle and we were so close to Burma (Myanmar by then) you could walk across the bridge on foot and add another country to your list.  Diane (our tour leader) appreciated how enticing it looked so she told us the cautionary tale of Bruce…

Apparently on a past trip she had a traveller named Bruce who because of his mixed ethnicity looked Thai.  Thais could cross into Burma without a problem but not the same for the rest of us.  Bruce was a bit of a brat so he snuck off when Diane wasn’t looking.  What Bruce hadn’t appreciated is that anyone will be welcomed into Burma with open arms.  He thought he was really clever.

But then he tried to leave!  That was another matter entirely, involving cash, camera equipment, bribes, etc.  Diane rescued him.  But she told us that was the extent of her largess.  We knew the score.  So if WE decided to sneak into Burma, we would have to orchestrate our own escape.  The cautionary tale of Bruce worked.  We just took pictures of the border sign.

But that is why when I read the re-branded G Adventures marketing stuff about Bruce I roll my eyes a little bit.  It does seem like Bruce is a pretty cool guy and I will likely take one of his tours at some point – but the idea that HE invented this form of travel… seriously, dude, Diane rescued your ass from rotting in prison in Burma and the concept of low key, hang out with the locals travel was pioneered by Intrepid, not by you, honey.  But you seem to be the more alpha male, beating your chest about how cool you are while the Intrepid guys are just doing their thing.  Me, I am a fan of the beta male… there is a lot to be said for self-deprecation 🙂  Richard – I really think you should turn in your passport.  You must be an American with all that self-promotion 😉

Category:

life philosophy, travel stories

Tagged with:

bringing the globe to life…

I’m not sure the exact origins of my obsession with travel but even as a child who got carsick, I just popped the gravol and waited anxiously beside the car waiting to leave my neighborhood behind.  I used to spend hours exploring an actual globe planning all the places I would see when I grew up and was in charge of the agenda.

That globe is now politically inaccurate.  I never imagined that world would change and borders would be redrawn and countries renamed.  I thought that only happened in history.  As a child, I thought the world was a static place and didn’t appreciate that you needed a historical date to understand if a map was actually correct.

As a modern traveller, it’s hard to imagine the wonder – and confusion – of the early explorers.  We get there faster, with a much higher level of comfort and – hopefully – with a greater understanding of the history and culture of the place we are arriving in.

Of course, not every traveller does that.  Talking about Egypt on three continents over the past few weeks has really illustrated the divide in the average person’s knowledge of what is happening in the world at large.  I’m not sure if it’s the same of everyone but I find once I have actually visited a place I am more personally invested when I hear the name in the news.  I have usually engaged with some of the locals and it’s now a place where I know someone and where I understand the culture.  I have context to the information in the news report.

I was proud of myself in Amsterdam as I managed to figure out Oude Kerk likely meant “old church” in Dutch so looked for a tower that might be an old church and found the World Press Photo exhibit without having to ask for help at the hotel!

The exhibition is incredible.  You can see photos on the website and the exhibition starts in Amsterdam and then travels the world so you might be able to catch it in some other locale.  I had heard of World Press but didn’t know much about it.  The headquarters are in Amsterdam and its goal is to celebrate photojournalism around the world.  The exhibition I saw was the annual photo contest winners.

http://www.worldpressphoto.org/

At the end I bought a few postcards as a memento and told the person at the register how great the exhibition was – which resulted in an interesting conversation about how we connect with and learn about the world.  The photos were stunning.  It was, of course, a contest to judge the work of the world’s best.  What I hadn’t anticipated though was the impact of the story, the journalism part of the word.

One of the most poignant parts of the conversation was talking about Rémi Ochlik.  He was the first prize winner in the general news – stories – category.  The story that garnered him the prize was “The Battle for Libya.”  You look at the photos and think – wow, there are a lot of big guns in those photos!  I like my travel a little less dangerous.  The reason we talked about him is because he was killed in Syria in February.  A number of photojournalists were killed in the last year and there was a tribute to them as part of the exhibition.

I don’t have the personality to want to report from war zones.  But I have a lot of respect for the people who do.  Without them, information would not be exchanged and there would be little hope for improvement in so many parts of the world.

I don’t think it’s necessary to become a photojournalist and report from Homs to have a positive impact on the world.  A few decades ago, I met a retired school teacher as part of a school assignment.  She lived in a small prairie town but she had been to almost every country in the world, including communist Russia back in the cold war days.  I was fascinated.  She gave me great advice that I continue to use every time I travel.  Know the local laws and customs.  Follow them.  Be friendly, curious and respectful.  You will not come to harm.  But you will learn about the world.

Last night I met a guy who has been to 68 countries!  I was humbled.  It was so refreshing to talk to someone from North America who shared my opinion that the timing of my trip to Egypt was brilliant.  It was exciting to stand in Amsterdam at the World Press Photo show and see all the photos from Egypt… and know I was just about to step into history in the making, not just read about it later in a dusty textbook.

And getting out there in the great wild world and paying attention expands your world view and makes eavesdropping more entertaining 🙂  While waiting for the bathroom on the plane home, I overheard part of a fascinating conversation.  A Dutch guy telling a very well-dressed African guy – “your countries are the future.”  I’m not sure where the African guy was from.  The Dutch guy was talking about opportunities in Namibia and how Africans are waking up to the economic potential of their countries instead of letting themselves be exploited by dictators and western multinationals.  An “African spring” would be good for the entire world.  Here’s hoping… 🙂

Category:

social commentary, travel stories

Tagged with:

messing with the temples…

As I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, I have abandoned the concept of a day by day travelogue.  I have tons of photos so will organize them once I am home and that will provide the daily record of my adventures.

We saw a lot of temples!  If I have my facts straight, some started as temples to gods of the pharaoh time and then were converted and overwritten by Greeks and Romans – who also adopted some of the Egyptian traditions while living in Egypt.

The temples offer a surfeit of delights – incredible architecture, astonishing artistic work, many decades of history and wonderful photographic opportunities.  We went to Denderah, Kom Ombo, Luxor and Philae in addition to the ones previously mentioned.

We arrived at them by tour bus, horse drawn carriage, boat or simply by foot.  Each offered its own delights – great carvings, colour in the stories depicted on the walls, astonishing columns complete with capitals… the only common factor was the vendors trying to sell us stuff at every turn.

The only drawback to a tour is that the pace is really intense so I learned in the moment all sorts of facts about each temple but it’s tough to recall all these mental notes many days later.  I did buy a book about Egypt that I am hoping will piece all my photos together.  But our shopping opportunities were extremely limited so I had to settle for a book in French!

Hopefully in time I will be able to better explain the temples.  My main take-away at this point is that the temples were the first form of propaganda and advertising.  So each new group messed with the details left by the previous ones trying to impose the symbols and iconography of the new regime and Egyptian temples became a fascinating record of human conflict and arrogance.

Category:

social commentary, travel stories

Tagged with:

the key of life

I AM working on some proper travel posts – and promise to relay my adventures in Egypt over the next week or two.  But right now I am sitting in the Four Seasons in Cairo (the first in the Middle East).  Some really cool looking Egyptian or Thai desserts have just arrived even though I didn’t order any because I stuffed myself so full of panang gai (a Thai chicken curry) I don’t need to eat for a couple of days…

One of the A&K guys told us on the bus that this is the best Thai restaurant in Cairo.  It has been one of the best Thai meals of my life.  And not only do I get the ubiquitous cute, charming Egyptian servers, they have seated me so that I can watch the Nile in the dark as I eat, all lit up with dinner cruises and ferry boats passing by.

I have always wanted to stay at the Four Seasons but I am too cheap to pay that much for a hotel room.  But since A&K insists I stay here, I am planning to get my money’s worth 🙂  Have already had an amazing bath (a great bathtub rare when one is travelling) and now this incredible meal.  My room feels like a suite and I have a view of the Nile there too.  Apparently I have been upgraded and I am not supposed to tell the others 🙂  Not sure why I got to be the chosen one but maybe I bonded a little more with Sameh and Riccardo…

Bonding with strangers does seem to be a special skill that I acquired somewhere.  This trip has a number of special people and relationships attached to it.  The most memorable will be Tito.  (And then just before I posted this I had a great conversation with Riccardo… so that will be in one of the next posts…)

Tito and I met the first night on the boat.  Sonia had told us that if we wanted serious souvenirs from a vendor we could trust, we should consider the shop on the boat.

While $1 necklaces are fun, I did want to bring home a more lasting souvenir from my first trip to Egypt.  So I was checking out the shop window the first night of the Nile Cruise when I met Tamer (nickname Tito).  I promised him I would come and shop before the cruise was over.

So I spent a long time one afternoon choosing charms (one of the key of life and one of Nefertiti) along with a gorgeous silver chain so I could wear them before I got home.

Taking home a souvenir like that is so much more meaningful.  Tito and I talked about life, Egyptian politics and personal style.  On the final night I hugged him and left lipstick stains on both his cheeks, marking him.  I think that meant I was due to return to Egypt 🙂

Tito sold me a necklace charm that represents the key of life.  But I think the real key of life is to take chances, engage people and smile a lot – you too could be staring at a beautifully bright neon-coloured ship passing before you on the famous Nile – a river that has provided life to many.

Category:

life philosophy, travel stories

just call me queen marla :)

I still have a catch up post I want to write about Amsterdam and my recent experience in Europe but my internet will turn off tomorrow morning so figured I would try and type something to get my money’s worth.

Today we got off the compound and I actually saw Tahrir Square.  I even got a shot of a bombed out looking Mubarak headquarters.  Seeing it live definitely made the recent events in Egypt come alive.  Tahrir Square seemed like a ragtag ghost town… a semi abandoned Occupy city…

What was more compelling was the claim of Sonia, our Egyptologist, that we were getting a private tour of the Museum of Antiquities.  It certainly felt that way.  We saw the riches of King Tut’s tomb, some real mummies – not just the coffins – along with other treasures.  But there was no shop because apparently it had been looted during the uprising.

And the museum seemed old and tired despite the beautiful artifacts it held.  What was fascinating was Sonia’s agreement with me that the archeological treasures of the world are best protected by being strewn across various museums.

We saw the real King Tut death mask, along with all sorts of jewelry buried with him.  Sonia was a lively guide and I tried to absorb everything she was saying but there was so much history it was hard to keep up…

What was most fascinating was her view on politics (a big fan of Anwar Sadat).  I am now more or less friends with the hotel bartenders so can up the ante on the political talk.  They have really heavy accents and I am asking complicated questions that normal tourists don’t ask so it’s not totally clear whether Sadat was a good guy or not… and the current election… no one seems very keen…

What they seem to be keen on is redheads 🙂  Today I had two guys at the museum look at me in a way that is hard to describe… do they not realize I am an old lady??? 😉  I already have a couple of guys in the bar that have a little crush I think… and one of the servers at the A&K welcome dinner tonight took a rose out of vase and put it in a special package with my name on it…  I got a takeaway glass of wine to do this post and was planning to just walk it up the path… but there are golf carts everywhere – so we drove really slowly… and then someone else popped up to walk me to my room… he was the one who told me I looked like an Egyptian queen…

Needless to say… my advice… find a developing world country that is pretty safe… and go when other tourists think it’s not safe… just be prepared to hold your tongue a lot when talking to Americans, some of the most lovely people on earth, but frequently so naive you can insult them without meaning to… so instead sneak away and drink wine at the bar with the locals 😉

Category:

travel stories

Tagged with:

turning european…

In the 80s, turning Japanese seemed a popular theme.  But somewhere the last decade or two, I turned European.

I don’t always get it right.  The cheek kissing is always fraught with awkwardness and I am constantly confused as to how many cheeks to kiss – and if I should be leaving lipstick marks or just air kissing.

But – as the bartender on my last night in Paris noted – and confirmed by his behaviour – one of the big attributes of Europeans is hospitality.  And I would also add – charm.  A big part of hospitality.  Without European hospitality, I would never have married a European man.  But that is a whole other story…

In a world where I increasingly worry about the loss of manners and civility, the Europeans are there trying to prove charm is still alive and well.  That sometimes you need to take time to perform a task properly, not just efficiently.  I have seen it across three countries in the very recent past.  The French are likely the most charming, performing tasks with both reserve and aplomb, but I have been impressed by all the Europeans I have encountered on my trip.

My final cultural adventures were two-fold.

First, I stood in the bitter cold waiting to buy a ticket to the Helmut Newton exhibition.  But I was at the Grand Palais so that provided some wonderful photographic opportunities and Helmut Newton is worth freezing off your fingers.  What is more gratifying was to see how packed it is!  I wasn’t quite sure what the four year olds were making of the shots of women wearing saddles but this is how they grow up to be European with a sophisticated world view and an ability to discuss art as readily as sport.

The second cultural adventure was more unique.  I wanted to mail a birthday present purchased in Paris before I left France.  How often do you walk past the Louvre to find the post office?  Seulement en Paris!  A beautiful, fascinating city that I would encourage everyone to visit.  No matter where you stay or what you do, Paris is certain to weave its magic.

One of my favourite Paris adventures was done on a budget.  To even out our restaurant spending, we decided to go to Monoprix and buy bread, cheese, some of those transcendent cold cuts, a mini bottle of champagne and some red wine.  It was a beautiful summer evening so we would indulge in all our treats on the breakfast terrace of our small hotel near the Eiffel Tower (we had a picnic on the lawn there one night as well).  We couldn’t find our corkscrew.  Things looked complicated.  But we were in Paris – so not only was a corkscrew produced, they opened our wine for us!  And then we had that “only in Paris” moment.   It was hot so the windows were open in the building opposite us.  And someone was practicing her cello.  So our dinner was accompanied by live classical music.

Leaving Paris is hard.   Having a memorable experience in Paris is a piece of cake.  Just ask my mom.  She told me she didn’t need to go to Paris.  It wasn’t on her bucket list.  Just by accident she turned 65 on the plane.  So this trip I suggested we should return for 75 as an anniversary celebration.  She said she’d make sure she had good walking shoes.  I’m a little worried that once she has the macarons at Pierre Hermé, I may not be able to convince her to leave…

Speaking of great walking shoes, I need to extend a shout out to Browns.  Just before I embarked on this adventure, I bought a pair of black patent driving moccasins.  Possibly one of the world’s most perfect travel shoes!  The Browns version are insanely comfortable.  I have  been wearing them every day as I trundle over the cobblestones.  By the time I get home, I will have already gotten my money’s worth 🙂  I would highly recommend a pair of Brown’s loafers.  Even though my friends all seem to think that I spend all my time in showstopping 4 inch heels, the real truth is that a large majority of my life is spent wearing Browns loafers – because they combine such a great mix of style, comfort and value.  And they are now on-line… check them out 🙂

http://www.brownsshoes.com/

Category:

life philosophy, travel stories

Tagged with:

Tag Cloud