Featured Travel Blog Entries
XIX: Thai Water Nymphs
We were forced to stop. The bus was under attack from all sides. Hundreds of Thai Nationals had taken to the streets, armed with high-powered squirt rifles, hoses and buckets, soaking everything in that got in their way. Songkran, the Thai Water Festival, hit and it hit hard. Everybody was drenching and getting drenched. On the sidewalks, in the alleys, taking up the entire main road – nothing could get through. I was heading back to the jungle from a visa run. I took the early morning bus, thinking I might make it home before the waterfight started. The bus hadn’t left early enough and now we were stuck in some small town on the way.
I watched the festivities through sheets of water pouring down my window. I had to get out there. As I ran down the aisle, the driver got in my way. “No, no, is too dangerous!” he cried. (Every Thai in the tourism industry feels compelled to protect foreigners.)
“It’s only water!"
Up on the Roof
"Let's go up to the roof," Francisco said.
I could think of a hundred reasons why I shouldn't-- Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were beautiful days of perfectly blue skies and low humidity after two punishing days of 100^ temperatures, so I'd been playing more than writing and the work had piled up. Though the line between play and work is receding more and more, it hasn't receded quite enough, and I was feeling guilty about everything that needed to be done. Friday, we'd spent the evening walking along the Hudson River, listening to live music, and finishing the night with drinks and dinner at an outdoor cafe. By Saturday, I was feeling cranky. I was behind on work, I had 100 things to do before I leave the city next weekend, it was humid again, and, worst of all, it was gray. The apartment was disorganized and so was I. Why should I go to the roof?
An Early Morning Visit to Sarnath
I awoke at 4:45am to the now familiar series of beeps from my Casio Pathfinder watch. I set my alarms the night before, figuring I could always go back to sleep if I didn’t feel like making my way down to the Ganges River for a sunrise boat ride along the ghats. I went back to sleep.
Two hours later, I stepped out of Hotel Buddha to the almost serene streets of Varanasi. I hailed an autorickshaw to take me the 10km to Sarnath, the location where Buddha gave his first sermons in a deer park. It is one of four primary pilgrimage sites on the Buddhist circuit. I had skipped Lumbini (his birthplace in southern Nepal) because it was a few days out of my way, and didn’t intend to visit Kushinagar, India (where he died) for the same reason.
Hold the Heights: Day 42
The pilgrim route is over. It feels amazing that the first stage of our journey has finished; the camino seems to have taken forever in itself. We’re excited to finally be heading away from busy roads and organised hostels; from now on, we’re on our own. After a few miles of forest tracks we reach the tiny hamlet of Fabrica de Orbaceita, where we join a new friend – the Gran Recorrido 11 or GR11. This is a recently created long distance footpath which leads through the Spanish Pyrenees from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, but is only occasionally marked with red and white paint splashes. Immediately from the hamlet it begins a tough, sweaty climb into the giant, rolling green hills which here make up the Pyrenees. It’s not just the gradient that is tougher than anything on the camino; the way is also badly overgrown and difficult to follow.
Reformed curmudgeons
We're officially into our last week in Liberia, the last week in a year away from what used to be reality. Sunday, we'll be on our way back home, retracing the steps we took nearly five months ago when we came here. Monrovia. Abidjan. Brussels. New York.
There will, I predict, be plenty of things that we'll have to get used to. Grocery stores (though you could make an argument against that in New York City). Restaurants. Traffic. Sushi. The lack of ready beaches. The ability to take showers that last more than two minutes. Cold weather. And cheese.
But, most of all, I think it will be exiting communal life that will be the hardest.
The Road to Jerusalem and Amman
It takes a long time to get to Jerusalem from Seattle, especially if you’re planning your trip around the lowest ticket price. There are direct flights to Tel Aviv from New York, but I had a free one-way ticket to Brussels (also via New York), so I went there first. From Brussels, I bought a $300 ticket to Tel Aviv on an airline that I wasn’t sure was in existence, because according to Wikipedia, it goes back and forth between operating and bankruptcy every couple of years.
If you think that sounds a lot like the U.S. airlines, it is–except when the non-U.S. carriers go under, they don’t usually keep flying like the U.S. airlines do. Thankfully, when I went they were doing fine and everything worked out very well.
Floating on the Surface of London
I am an immigrant and a resident of a new country. I just don't know it.
That is to say that while I know it intellectually, I don't feel it in my core. When I am walking around in London, I still feel like a tourist there to take in the sites, have a few pints, and get back on a plane to Canada. During all the weeks spent in Toronto in denial emotionally about my impeding move, I always felt that once I got to London, it would all hit me like a ton of bricks and I would realize that it was real. Instead, I find myself still sitting around feeling like a temporary visitor.
That's not that bad, though. Getting hit by a ton of bricks doesn't sound like much fun. Perhaps easing myself into this whole adventure seems a lot better.
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