As we end the second leg of our three leg journey, and head into our Canadian sojourn, we have decided to recap some of the more unique and memorable moments of our trip. As we write this, four of the staff at our Thai beach resort are gathered around the brand new cappuccino machine trying to figure out how it works. Earlier this morning I witnessed the manager briefing the assembled staff on the intricacies of an electric powered coffee maker, some of them were taking notes for that, so cappuccino machines are like advanced physics for them I’m pretty sure.
Mother is supposed to be helping me write the introduction. But she ordered the first cappuccino, and it was gawd-awful, so now she’s across the room showing the staff how to use the machine. It’s quite a sight, to be sure. All I can say is that my dad would probably be turning beet-red with embarrassment if he saw how the people here tried to make lattes.
Anyways, we’ve had some pretty memorable times on our trip so far. Some of them we’ve written about, others we haven’t yet. Some of the juicier tidbits we are saving for stories to tell when we get back home, others are far to embarrassing to ever be mentioned again. I pause here to mention that the staff here has broken out into a raucous round of applause in response to mother’s demonstration of how to steam the milk and make foam. Mother’s back at the table now, and I have beer to drink, so I’m going to pass the computer to her.
Well, where to begin? I must say that as time has passed, Joel has become a great traveling companion...except for the part where he stays in the hotel room all day, and I have to adventure out on my own to see the world. I am getting used to his continuous admonishments...such as, “Mother, please be careful”, and “Mother, please wait until I leave before you do that”, or “Mother, have you any idea how dangerous motorbikes are?”
I decided that taxis in Thailand are less than efficient, and renting a motor scooter is the way to go. Now I bomb around everyday, up and down the steepest roads with the sharpest hairpin turns I have ever seen...quite thrilling really. When I arrived at the hotel with my new wheels, Joel said, "how in the world did you rent that?" I replied..."easy...$5 and an international student ID card!" (I think they thought it was a driver’s license...looks official enough).
For memorable moments it is hard to beat being locked on an out of service (see Barcelona post); however, Joel’s low moment in the eye clinic in Calcutta runs a close second, so I will begin there.
Ok, I’ve taken back thruster-control. To begin, you have to understand how reticent I was to visit an eye clinic in one of the poorest, dirtiest cities in all of India. Balance that, of course, with how desperate I was to have someone look at my eye. It was really starting to freak me out. I had no idea what was wrong with it. Surprisingly, the first part of the process was relatively painless. They did a vision test (still 20/20, woohoo!) and then sent me to an ophthalmologist, who shined a bright, painful light in my eye, and prodded my eye socket with a sharp metal stick. Needless to say, I found this remarkably uncomfortable.
I must interject here...I watched a small girl of about 7 go through the identical procedure just before Joel, and it was a simple exam. The problem was that whenever someone approaches Joel’s face within about 5 feet, he gets a little skittish. Needless to say, the technician was losing patience, and finally said, "if you do not sit still, I will have to quit. "
You’d be concerned too if someone was sticking a hard metal object into your eye-socket.
What he forgets to tell you is that the metal probe in question was only there to hold his eye open because he kept closing his eyes making it impossible to do the exam. ANYWAY...They quickly determined that he needed to see a Retina Specialist. The nurse told me they were very busy and we may have to come back another day. A few minutes later, she came and told Joel that we were to go upstairs and wait for a “retina opening." At that moment I was so relieved that he was going to be seen right away, and could not understand the sudden look of terror on his face, and the barrage of questions he asked like...”Wait a minute...what are they going to do?”“What’s involved in this procedure?” and “We’re going to do this right now??!!” It took awhile for me to realize that Joel had interpreted the “retina opening” as in, “THEY ARE GOING TO OPEN MY RETINA! RIGHT NOW! PROBABLY WITH NO ANESTHETIC AND LARGE POINTY TOOLS!!
Ok, let me set the record straight. These people don’t really have a keen grasp of the English language. Their exact words were, “You need to see a retina specialist, please go upstairs and wait for a retina opening.” What the $%#@ is a retina opening??? Anyways, it wasn’t until after we’d been upstairs in the waiting room for nearly ten minutes, ten long, terribly uncomfortable and worrisome minutes, that I addressed my concerns to mother. She then explained to me what retina opening actually meant. I was much relieved. The release of tension was so great, that we spent the next ten minutes laughing so hard we cried (the other patients in the waiting room gave us dirty looks), and eventually the nurse came and told us to sit somewhere else – presumably as far away from the other patients as possible.
My health problems on this trip have been limited to keeping the ole’ bowels moving, and I have become accustomed to Joel’s daily question, “Any movement on the southern front?” The answer is almost invariably, “No!” and at times I have resorted to ingenious methods of evacuation. Let me explain here, that we have been in some very remote and seemingly uncivilized places, where sitting with a good book is not an option. In fact, sitting is not an option. In fact, there are no options to make the experience comfortable.
Let me interject here with a little class on developing world toilets.
Lesson 1: There aren’t any.
Lesson 2: Toilet paper is whatever you have on your person that you’re pretty sure you won’t have to use anytime soon.
Both I and mother quickly realized that we had brought a lot more pairs of socks than we really needed. This observation quickly translated into a useful application for the surplus garments. This is on top of mother’s new-found kleptomaniac fixation with stealing tissue, toilet paper, paper towels, napkins, and anything soft and disposable that she can get her hands on. Many a time this trip has she emerged from a restaurant, airport washroom, or any other innocuous seeming retail outlet, only to saunter up to me shiftily and stuff a wad of tissue into one of my pockets. “Keep this” she usually says, “I have no idea when we’ll be able to find more”. To her credit, she’s so far proven herself to be most providential in determining when and where to begin stockpiling tissue. Many of you may not know this, but they don’t sell toilet paper in India. Not in Calcutta anyways.
OK, so, I STOLE SOME TOILET PAPER FROM THE BATHROOM AT THE AIRPORT!! Sue me!! This is only because I spent the entire day shopping for some, and couldn’t find any. I promise I will give up this habit when I return home. (Though I am likely to never again use too much as has been my habit in the past).
I will point out here, that in two and a half years working at KFC, the women’s restroom went through toilet paper FOUR TIMES FASTER than the men’s restroom. Sometimes I would send someone to stock it up in the morning, and then have a customer inform me that thee was none left midway through the afternoon. I have determined that every woman has an innate impulse to steal toilet paper from washrooms. Not just single sheets, but whole rolls.
Enough potty talk...
Following our safari in Kenya, which was an incredible experience to say the least, seeing such amazing creatures in the wild, we went to the Calcutta zoo. We did not want to go to the zoo, but somehow my desire to visit the national park outside of town got lost in translation. The Calcutta zoo was like going through a time warp. The grounds were large and green, and covered in garbage and stray cats. Millions of them. The cages were small and concrete. The animals were sickly looking and paced along the metal bars. Their drinking water was green slimy water...and the pool in which the Hippos swam was unidentifiable. I thought it was a large grassy area, until a Hippo emerged covered in green slime. The highlight was the nice Indian family of five standing at the bars of the jaguar cage, ooing and awing at such a beautiful creature...I do not think they realized the animal’s heaving was not normal. We were pretty sure the poor thing was ready to croak.
While we’re on the topic of animals – wild or otherwise – I feel I have to mention the dogs of Africa and Asia. First, it is important to understand that there are no “breeds” of dog in the developing world. There are just dogs. They all look the same; small, tan and patchy, skinny, diseased, and they possess the most enormous testicles I have ever seen on a dog. In fact, I don’t think I had ever seen a non-neutered dog until I went to Africa. No one feeds them, either. They are more or less expected to fend for themselves – even the ones that are obviously pets. I have become convinced that I am a harbinger of doom for third-world dogs. When we were staying at the Kumasi Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Ghana, there was an incredibly sick looking dog (he had a hole in the top of his head that flies were crawling in and out of, and his stomach was bloated). I mentioned to the Director there that I thought the dog was likely to die either that day or the next. He looked at me like I was nuts. “No, no,” he said, “That dog is just old. He’s been like that for a long time, he’ll be fine.” Sure enough, by next morning, the dog was gone. I asked the Director where it had gone, and he informed me that it had died in the night and been buried before I woke up. I remember catching a few suspicious glances from the students at the Institute. Some of them, I’m pretty sure, thought I had killed it while they slept. Others seemed to think I had prophetic abilities. A few weeks later in the Massai village, I foretold the doom of another dog. He, too, looked quite ill, and I mentioned to one of the men of the village that I thought the dog was dying. He (not surprisingly) replied by saying, “No, he’s just old, he’ll be fine.” Sure enough, that dog was also dead before we left the village. Another dog (a cute white puppy new to the village) fell down the toilet (read small hole in ground) while we were there. We were kept up all night by its howls of distress. It wasn’t until morning that someone bothered to fish it out. Needless to say, keep me away from your pets.
Just as Joel seemed to have a prophetic sense with third world animals, I mentioned one day while observing the most amazing clouds in Ghana, that we were sure to have a wicked storm that night. The College Professor with us informed me that the storms there always came from another direction, and that nothing would come of cloud formations we were observing. An hour later, the power was out, and much to my delight, we experienced a wonderful African electrical storm and downpour like I have seldom seen. The locals seemed particularly impressed with my weather forecasting abilities, and it just highlighted to Joel and I how we often assume that aboriginal peoples (look no further than our own Native Americans) and people living in the developing world must have a keen intuitive understanding of the natural world that we in the developed world could never fully grasp because of our dependence on technology. This is not necessarily the case.
On to a new topic. If anyone is reading this and thinks that we eat too much food in the western world, think again. I have been to a number of different restaurants in Calgary; some give big portions, some small, but I have never received as much food in one serving as I have gotten in restaurants in Africa and Asia. It’s slightly different, of course. Back home the meat portion of the meal tends to be the focus, and then you get a side of rice or pasta, and a side of vegetables. We are simply a meat-eating culture, and there’s nothing wrong with that (The Massai, too, were a meat eating people. They didn’t even start growing maize to supplement their diet until twenty or thirty years ago.) In most of the developing world though, meat is a luxury, so meals are a little different. What you typically get is a MOUND of starch (rice, yam, potato, corn, whatever it turns out to be) and a few measly scraps of meat and vegetables. This was most evident in Africa. One of their favourite dishes in Ghana is called Red-Red. It’s fried red plantain served with beans and rice. All starch. All VERY filling. And they pile in onto your plate like popcorn. AND, as if to make matters worse, their culture is such that you are expected to eat every scrap of food put in front of you. To not do so is insulting. Needless to say, our stomachs have expanded considerably since our trip began.
I won’t belabour the food quantity issue, as I have spoken of it earlier, what I will say is that I have enjoyed the food immensely (once we left Africa). I especially love Indian and Thai food. I will also say I have become accustomed to swatting flies out of my food, squishing small crawling creatures on the table, and seeing Marlborough Reds on menus. And most notably in Thailand, receiving something completely different than what I ordered. Each meal is an adventure! For example, I ordered fried macaroni and pork last night. My first relapse to western style food...I thought maybe I could fool my bowels into thinking that they were back home and giving me a little movement...to no avail...what I got was and got broccoli and shrimp. No pasta to be seen on the plate. Joel has ordered something completely different each time and always receives the same spicy Thai seafood soup that makes him sweat so profusely, that it quite literally forms streams of water on his face that drips off the end of his nose into the soup like a leaky faucet.
Speaking of bugs... there are some weird %@$^’n bugs in these countries. Huge bumblebees the size of Kaiser rolls. They make a noise like a 747 powering up on the runway. The mosquitoes here are smarter than dolphins. They can find their way through the smallest holes and cracks, through a maze of bug netting and sleeping bags, and still get you. That being said, there must be fewer mosquitoes in the whole of the African continent than there are at a late august barbeque in Calgary. I am quite convinced that Canada must be the mosquito capital of the world. Anyone who has been to northern Saskatchewan would undoubtedly agree with me. The mosquitoes back home, are louder, bigger, and FAR more numerous than the mosquitoes in Africa and Asia. The mosquitoes here are a lot smarter though, and they have stealth mode. “silent rudders” I like to say; they make no noise whatsoever, even if they’re a few inches from your face. This makes it infinitely more difficult to avoid them, or to catch them when they try to bite you. They are smaller, so it’s harder to notice when they land on you. Thankfully, we have western medicine to protect us.
On that note, let me say that if given the choice between the expensive, no side effects malaria medicine, and the cheaper variety...go for broke. Joel is on the cheaper stuff, and one of its side effects is anxiety and paranoia. Every Wednesday, the day after he takes his pill, I prepare myself for a barrage of issues raging from his newest deadly disease to his being convinced that all people in the developing world are conspiring to kill him with deadly bacteria they grow on their hands before preparing his next meal. His common traveler diarrhea progresses to an advanced case of Crohn’s disease, and his common cold becomes Legionnaires’ disease. The bugs are infinitely larger that day, there are stealthy jelly fish in all the coastal waters, and his mother is hell bent on getting herself kidnapped walking the dark streets of strange cities alone. Despite his seemingly possessive concern for my well being, he refuses to accompany me on the most mundane walkabouts, and flatly refuses to get on the back of my motor cycle.
What mother fails to mention is that despite her culturally sensitive attitude, she remains one of the most boisterous, undiplomatic, and aggressive shoppers I have ever had to wander the streets with. I have always had the understanding that “window shopping” is an entirely western phenomenon. Because of the bargaining culture of developing nations, it is generally assumed by shop owners that if you inquire as to the price of an item, it is because you are interested in purchasing it. No one has told them that mother likes to ask how much things cost, try them on, and even say how much she likes them, before trying to explain to the shopkeeper that she has no money. They, for their part, must find this considerably aggravating. I have tried to communicate this to mother, but she doesn’t seem to grasp the nature of my argument.
That is so NOT TRUE! Joel is just embarrassed by me talking to people. He prefers to see the world silently and any form of communication with the locals is taboo. And, because of his refusal to play the game we have paid infinitely more for things that we needed to.
In the words of my dad: “Wrongo”. I have proven myself to be an adept bargainer. I frequently get my souvenirs and knick-knacks for less than cost. This is because I understand how the economy in Africa works. The moment you get out of your safari van, half a dozen people bombard you trying to sell their wares. All of them act as though everything they are trying to sell they made themselves painstakingly in their spare time. I’m pretty sure they import most of the crap from China. And they all work together. All six of the people shouting at you work for the same people. You can tell because in order to make change when you buy something they get the change from one of the other vendors. This is a clear sign that they are in cahoots. As a keen supporter of capitalism and the market economy, I feel a need to promote competition in any environment. For this reason I explained to the two vendors trying to sell me necklaces that I wanted to buy TWO NECKLACES, but that I wasn’t going to buy one from each of them. I would buy two from one of them, and whoever gave me the best price would get the sale. I waited nearly twenty-five minutes for them to come down to the price I was willing to pay, and afterwards I was informed by one of our guides that the lucky vendor I purchased from had actually sold his necklaces to me at a loss – so happy had he been to get the sale. Mother criticized me for not supporting the local economy. I’m pretty sure I was doing them a favour by teaching them the nuances of supply and demand – If twenty people are all selling the same crap, you can’t POSSIBLY expect to get a good price for it – I explained this to them in detail, much to their chagrin.
It is true that eventually Joel stopped ignoring the vendors and began playing with them. Though I cannot say I approved of his tactics. At one point he was so perturbed by being bombarded (literally), that he started to try to sell the vendors things. A vendor would produce his wares, and say, “hey mister, you like, very good price for you”. Joel would put on a strong Slavic accent, and say, “yes, very good price...I sell you these nice glasses for 50 shillings.” At that point the vendor would look confused, as Joel removed the sunglasses from his head, saying “you want? I give you very cheap price.” The vendor would take the glasses, and put them on, and say, “You give me? Free?” Joel would answer, “No, no, very good price, I sell you very cheap.” By the end of the safari, everyone in the van was speaking with an accent and trying to sell their ball caps and sunglasses, which quickly confused the vendors, who promptly moved on to easier prey.
Speaking of shopping, I have discovered that I like jewelery. In fact, I love jewelery. I am a real girl! And I especially like jewelery that is so inexpensive. I have purchased real gold bracelets for as little as $10, gold and silver rings, pearl bracelets and necklaces, scores of earrings. I cannot stop. I am a shopaholic when it comes to jewelery. After I began feeling guilty about buying myself so much, I realized that I have sisters, nieces, sister-in-laws, aunts, a mother...yippee....so I keep buying. I have lovely gifts for all...gold from Dubai, silver from India and pearls from Thailand. And just to even the score...lots of men’s silk ties.
I, for my part, have limited my purchases to a few scanty souvenirs, and even then only when I was able to get a price for them that would make a Scotsman blush. For the most part I have concerned myself with the purchase of consumables – cheap beer and cigarettes primarily. I have discovered that I like cheap beer and cigarettes. In fact, I love cheap beer and cigarettes. I am a real boy! And I especially like beer and cigarettes that are so inexpensive. I have purchased Red Marlboros by the pack for as little as $1.75, Gold Flake cigarettes in India, silver Benson and Hedges in Kenya, scores of beers. I cannot stop. I am such a shopaholic when it comes to beers and cigarettes. When I began feeling guilty about buying myself so much beer, I realized that mother could help me drink all the beer and smoke all the cigarettes, yippee! So I keep buying. I have no gifts for any of you.
Speaking of beer, we are on our fourth, and realize you may need a potty break by now...so take a break, pee, open a beer...we have just begun! And when I say we are on our fourth beer, might I add that beer in the developing world does not come in small sizes. The beer here looks like a 2 litre bottle of coke! They are humungous! I am sloshed after 1 beer.
Now it is time to talk about personal hygiene. Living in remote villages for so long, where water is a scarcity, hot water is non-existent, and soap a luxury, cleanliness has taken on all new meaning. My clothes are permanently stained with the red dust of Africa. So is my hair. I am beginning to understand the concept of dreadlocks. I quit trying to brush my hair 3 weeks into this trip. Joel wears his underwear for one day, then he puts it on backwards and wears it for one more day. Then he turns it inside out and repeats the process! It’s brilliant – really!
This may sound gross to some of you, but please understand that in some of the villages where we have stayed, the children have to walk 3 miles every morning to fetch water. Water is so precious that it is a sign of great hospitality and respect that they gave us water to bathe (and by water to bathe I mean a bucket of water and a slimy cloth).
We have however been meticulous about keeping our hands clean and have come up with ingenious ways of hiding our disinfectant hand sanitizer from airport authorities, who promptly take away all our soap, shampoo and anything else remotely liquid in nature.
Speaking of airport security... If you think security is tight in the west, you’re dead wrong. Security is not “tight” in North America; it’s just stupid and convoluted. The rest of the world has got it figured out. They frisk you the moment you enter the airport (even if you’re just going to pick someone up at the arrivals gate) .Then, they scan your bags. Then they scan your bags again before you check in, and strap them with security tape so that no one can open them after they’ve been checked. Then you check-in. Then you go through security. They have a separate line for men and women. You get felt up by the guards, even if you didn’t make the metal detector beep. You go behind a screen where they quite literally touch EVERY part of your body (it’s a little erotic, actually). Then before boarding the plane, on the tarmac, they frisk you again and manually search all your hand luggage. Then after you land they x-ray your bags again, and you go through customs, and then another security check before they deposit you in the arrivals terminal. Surprisingly, this entire process takes less time than going through a single security check at a North American airport. We were in the airport waiting for our flight to Kathmandu when the bomb went off in Karachi, Pakistan, killing 130 people. Needless to say, everything took a little longer that day...
Other interesting tidbits...
Did you know that in India, when someone says yes, they shake their head from side to side, like we would when we say no? They also do this during conversation to indicate they are following along. Needless to say, this causes some very awkward and funny moments. Imagine this....you call over the waiter and ask if they have bottled water. They shake their head. You think they mean no. So you say, “You don’t have bottled water?”, and they shake their head again. You pause for a moment, and they say, “Bottled water?”, and you say, “yes”, and they shake their head. So you say, “You don’t have any bottled water?”, and they say yes, but shake their head no. So then, thoroughly confused, you order beer. They shake their head, but they bring you the beer anyways. Everybody’s happy.
A little too happy.
Beer number five...
Part of the problem with ordering food in Thailand is that I’m pretty sure that most of the staff at our resort are illiterate. They also don’t speak English. This means that you can’t even point at the menu (which is written in Thai and English) and expect them to know what you want. We have ordered beer and gotten cigarettes, wine and gotten beer, cigarettes and gotten seafood, and noodles and gotten... well I guess they were noodles, but no kind of noodle that I’m familiar with. Despite the difficulties, we are having a great time.
Although Joel’s idea of fun is different than my own, and he spends a lot of time in hotel rooms, I will add here that I am very proud of him. He has stretched himself on this trip many times, and much to my delight, has made amazing progress on his book. It is very good, and I am already jockeying to be his agent. I have already noted many of the experiences he has had on this trip find their way into the description in his novel, and I know he will draw on all the things he has seen and done on this trip for years (and books) to come.
With that we will sign of, and bid you all adieu. We have appreciated your posts, and look forward to seeing many of you soon. I will be taking a break with Stephane in El Salvador for two weeks while we visit an old friend from politics who runs the embassy there, and Joel will head back to Calgary for 2 weeks after my convocation in Victoria. Then we will re-meet in Guatemala for yet another adventure...and more blogging! Stay tuned!
P.S. Happy Birthday Dad!
