San Miguel, El Jardin again

1.14.08

Espresso (expresso!) recharge after a day of pounding the cobbles. We walked up up and up through the Callejon de Churro, up to the top for a view down the other side. Stone stairway upon stone stairway, the route would up past one grand hacienda after another. That's where the richies live. The views are stunning up there.

Before the climb began, we wandered through El Parque de Benito Juarez, part of it half demolished and under construction, the rest impeccably groomed and maintained, a riot of green even in the non-growing December season. I could only imagine what the place would be like in the middle of the spring or summer, all hacienda walls crawling with flowered vines and hovered over by hummingbirds. Under cloudy skies and with the gentlest of breeze blowing, it was a most pleasant stroll, a great way to kill a day.

That's the theme here: spending the time. We are agenda free, schedule less. We aim to relax, and that's just what we do. We wake when we feel like it, often with the scratching at the casita door by Emma the half-cataracted cocker spaniel. She comes in and hangs out while I make a cup of coffee and read a story by Dave Eggers or Michael Chabon and Cathy finishes off her sleep.

Then we go out for coffee and maybe some breakfast. We look at art, we look at churches, we sit on benches and watch people. We eat delicious Mexican food and we hang out. Around 4 or so I take a nap. Every day. Then we hit the roof for bubbly pink wine or beer and sunset. This is a routine I could live with.

At the top of the hill, off the sidewalk and back on the road, we stopped at a little storefront offering Tortas y Jugas. After much deliberation, C had the quesadillas and I the torta Argentina, a bolillo with chorizo, queso, y milanesa, a pounded and pan-cooked pork loin, I believe. Not so sure, but that's what it tasted like. Delicious. Absolutely delicious.

Then, of course, it was back to the casita for a nap. And so on.

San Miguel, El Jardin

1.11.08

The overnight travel was long. Gruelling in the way that medium-tough tasks can be when you're too tired to be efficient or all there. LAX is a nightmare of a place, huge lines, rude people, an all but total lack of signage. Terrible. But we got through and out and had an uneventful flight to Leon. I had a row of 3 seats to myself, and Cathy got stuck by a window inside a giant of a mom and her sneezy son who slept all over her.

The shuttle into San Miguel was also easy. My first ever experience of someone waiting outside the gate in an airport holding a sign with my name on it. It took us all the way to the hacienda on Correo in San Miguel. High wooden double doors press up against the narrow sidewalk lining the cobblestone street. Katie, the intern for our friend Derek's company, opened the huge wooden gate to us and led us inside. Hacienda indeed.

Inside the gate, an arched entryway holds the small Renault of the absent owners. Narrow double wooden doors on the left lead into the main house. Straight back, a bricked path between the house and the wall opposite, covered in planters whose donkey eared cedum cascade to the ground, leads through a beautiful lush garden, past a small man-made pond, to an open area of the courtyard, fronting the casita. It's a two-story structure with an iron spiral staircase leading to a set of double doors on the second floor.

Upstairs, inside, the quarters are small, simple, and immaculate. Floor and ceiling are tiled and bricked, the ceiling occasionally giving way to a thick carved glass brick serving as skylight. Bedroom, kitchen/dining area, bathroom. We'd be comfortable there for the week.


After a nap, I grabbed a Modelo and headed for the roof of the main house. Derek would arrive soon and I needed to let him in. The view up top was amazing, looking out over the rolling terrain of other rooftops of the city. Like this one, most have some sort of patio and seating and garden on the roof. In the distance, beyond the numerous church domes and spores, the city gives way to arid plans and then to hills jutting up from the valley floor. The bright colors of the buildings sit in contrast to the hazy, cloud-streaked sky and the dim hills beyond.

It's nice to be somewhere again. It's been too long since I last left the US, and even though I've not gone too far, it feels good to be gone.

San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico

We had this opportunity. Our friend Derek was to be house-sitting for one Richard Haas, at 59 Correo, in San Miguel de Allende. The house, or hacienda--or, more accurately, Haascienda, as the address plate reads--has in the back of its garden a casita, and the top floor was offered to us for a vacation residence.

We accepted.

So, on January 11th, we flew out of Boise on an evening flight for LAX. We'd spend 4 hours there before catching an overnighter to Leon, in the state of Guanajuato. From there, an hour and a half shuttle ride would bring us to the casita, where we'd spend a relaxing week away from winter.

LAX is something I wouldn't wish on anyone. Unruly, disorganized, loud, rude, filled with an endless series of the longest lines imaginable, it amazes me that this place doesn't just fall in on itself. It took us a while to get through, but we did, and eventually we made it to Mexico.

We've got loads of pictures, and they'll be up soon, along with the rest of the account of this trip. It was a pretty fantastic place, and we had a great time. More later.

NYC October 07

Tuesday, 10.10.07

Our last day in the city. It was hard to believe it was already time to go home.

After coffee we walked through Inwood and to the Cloisters, the medieval arm of the Met, where Michael worked as the librarian. It was a lovely walk, as the scenery changed quickly from the Little-Dominican-area of Inwood to a wooded park and on to thick wooded hills and a quiet, leafy walk uphill to the Cloisters. The building was gorgeous, castle-style, built early in the century.

Inside, Michael showed us the library, which is a wonderful, quiet, oak-paneled room filled with volumes of books aligned neatly under high ceilings. Talk about a great place to spend your days.

We walked the grounds then, looking first at the art and pieces of architecture, then moving on to the Unicorn Tapestries, probably the most famous works in the place. They were impressive, more for their age than anything, and I have to admit they made me feel sad. They depict a typical human reaction to the strange or fantastic: Hunt it down and kill it.

After that we made our way out to the gardens, which were beautifully laid out and kept.

From there we made our way back up the hill toward H&Ms apartment. In lieu of a great neighborhood deli, we found ourselves back at Grandpa's, where C got manicotti and I got a slice of pepperoni and a sausage roll. Mmmmm-MM! Great food.

We bought some flowers for the apartment and went back up to pack. Then it was off to the airport and so long to NYC. As it ended up, we would be spending the night in Denver as we sat on the tarmac at Laguardia for about 3.5 hours before being allowed to take off. But that's another (unpleasant) story.

As for NYC, I thoroughly enjoyed my time there and can't wait to go back, but I have to admit it made me feel no small amount of regret. I can still see the application packet from NYU that I filled out for grad school before being offered an assistantship and teaching job at Eastern Illinois U, which would pay for my school and get me good experience, but would also keep me confined to the cornfields and culture of central Illinois. I know: Regrets do me no good. But I felt them, and still feel them, about missing my chance to spend some of my formative years in this amazing place.

But I'll be back.

NYC October 07

Monday, 10.9.07

After some days of fairly nonstop activity and interaction, a body--and a mind--need a break. So on Monday I made it a point to haul myself out of bed early, get a cup of coffee made, and grab a seat at the table with a good book to chill out and enjoy the silence. So I did, enjoying the stillness and aloneness with a view out the window onto 207th St.

When everyone else got up about an hour later, we tore into the chocolate bobka and had more coffee and fruit. We were headed to the Museum of Modern Art for a quick tour of their greater paintings. With a $20 admission, the only reason we could make a quick tour of it was because both Heidi and Michael work for the Met, which meant we got in free. Woohoo! Therefore we could skip to the 5th and 6th floors, breeze around the Pollacks and the Picassos, the Miros and Monets, the Klimts and the deKoonings, spending two hours before bolting for lunch without feeling bad.

It was a great rush tour, too, filling me with that unbelieving awe I feel at the Chicago Art Institute, being in the presence of such masterworks as you see so often that you become desensitized to their actual physical existence.

So, from there we were making our way toward the West Village, and we came upon the Columbus Day Parade on the way to the subway. I watched while Cathy ran into a store to shop for boots.

When we got to the West Village, we walked around for a while looking for our next meal when we came across the Crumpler store. We went in, Cathy bought a bag, and then we headed across the block to an Italian joint for a snack. We got mussels in a fennel cream sauce with a salad of prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, and arugula, with a glass of white wine each.

Next up, Bleeker Street Records. Unfortunately, the only really remarkable thing about the store was the gargantuanly fat cat they had patrolling the aisles. I think I blew my wad at Other Music a couple days previous, so I actually left without buying anything. More shopping led us to a coffee shop where we got a raspberry mousse and a couple coffees. We walked some more, shopped some more, and walked some more.


Eventually we made our way to a Thai place for dinner, and here we'd have the first bad meal of our trip. Bland Chineseish food passing itself off as Thai was the order of the day at and it's not worth saying more than that.

We'd intended to see some jazz this night, but a lackluster lineups at the joints in the East Village, a sold-out door at the Vanguard, and tired tired feet won out, and we hit the subway to make our way home.

NYC October 07

Sunday, 10.8.07

Finding our way home from Randall's Island late on Saturday night took a toll. So we were slow to rise come Sunday morning. We were slated to meet Cathy's friend Christina, who she's known since high school, and her husband Thomas, at Barney Greengrass' deli on the upper west side.

They were waiting on the sidewalk when we arrived, and it was only a minute before we got our table. Chris is a violinist who plays in a pretty amazing array of Broadway productions and other gigs of note (she was trying out for the Radio City Music Hall Christmas show a couple days after we saw her) and Thomas is owner of the Gitterman Gallery on East 75th. I'd never met either of them before, and to be honest I didn't know what to expect.

Immediately, though, any apprehension or anxiety was laid to rest. Wonderful people they are, of course, and we had a really nice time and an amazing breakfast. I had the everything bagel with sturgeon, which was out of this world, and I got to taste Cathy's salmon and eggs which were also fantastic. We even got to grab a chocolate bobka for Heidi, as it's her favorite.

After breakfast we walked around the neighborhood with C and T, into Central Park for a stroll around the grounds. What a stunning place. You hear about Central Park and what an amazing feat of greenspace preservation it is, but until you leave the noise and motion of the streets and disappear into the inner reaches of the park you just can't really understand what it means to have this park in the middle of this city. The 6-mile bike path, all the winding trails, The Rambles, Strawberry Fields, the contour and trees and rocks and endless little enclaves where you can truly find peace and quiet make up one of the most impressive parks I've seen.

We may not have seen the Statue of Liberty on this trip, but we did see the Dakota Building, an icon in its own right. And though I'm no big Beatles or Lennon fan, it was a pretty powerful thing to see that place and the tribute to the man right across the street in the park.

From the Park we went to pay a visit to Thomas' gallery, which was a lovely space on East 75th St. Besides having two bright and airy rooms for exhibits, as well as open hallways and small adjacent spaces for hanging photos, the building had a beautiful garden-courtyard out back, an asset that in this city I would imagine is pretty valuable.

After we took our leave of C and T, we walked on and did some shopping before stopping for coffee and a crepe at the Follow Me Cafe. Then, more shopping, before heading back toward the park for a rendezvous with Heidi and Michael and Harlan and Kristin at Strawberry Fields. We had a bit of a doughnut picnic, as H and M had paid a visit to the Donut Plant and were thoughtful enough to share their bounty with us.

After the picnic we headed toward the Columbia University area to find some dinner. We followed H&Ms recommendation and went to a small Ethiopian place near campus called Massawa, and the food was outstanding. This was my first restaurant experience with Ethiopian food, and it didn't disappoint. We shared a platter full of different items, all vegetarian, from lentils to sweet potatoes to all manner of other stuff, scooped up with pieces of spongy bread torn from one of the many rolls of it that came with dinner. No utensils. Great meal.

Cathy and I walked back through campus toward the subway, where we caught a train back up to Inwood for the night. On the way back to the apartment from the stop, we noticed a big gathering of guys outside the window of an open shop. Suddenly they erupted into yelling and movement, and what I thought was the start of a fight turned out to be a bunch of guys watching the Yankees try to pull one out against the Indians. No such luck, as we'd later find out, but it was entertaining to see groups of people gathered outside every window with a tv going the whole way home.

When we got back to the apartment, H&M were still up, so they put out a spread of cheese and pickles and salami and chocolate and bread and opened made some cocktails and we talked for a whole longer before retiring for the night. Quite the full and accomplished day.

NYC October 07

Saturday, 10.6.07

This was the day we'd planned around. The reason we'd booked the trip. Out on Randall's Island, a rock and roll show to beat all rock and roll shows would occupy us from afternoon til late in the night. The Arcade Fire headlined, with LCD Soundsystem, Blonde Redhead, Les Savy Fav, and Wild Light supporting.

The day started a bit slowly, as we took our time getting out of bed and going. Soon enough we were on the subway to Harlem, this time the 1, as the A shut down at midnight Friday for a weekend of maintenance. We'd planned to meet up with Harlan and Kristin (friends from Austin) and Cara and Jesper (friends from Boise now in Portland, Maine) at the M
&G Diner on 125th at Broadway. We'd heard this was a no-frills soul-food diner that Bill Clinton called one of his favorites, and we were excited.

The joint looked just like I thought it would: long and narrow, a formica counter running the distance, a jukebox on the near wall next to a table crammed into the window corner, chocolate cake on the counter, grease in the air. The staff, all middle-aged black women, were in scrubs. We grabbed seats at the counter and waited for the others to arrive. Harlan and Kristin got there first, and as both are vegetarians to differing degrees, this place didn't exactly excite them. She had milk, he had chocolate cake. Sheezus.

Cathy and I, on the other hand, went after it: Chicken and waffles, coffee for me and coke for her. Hell yeah. And man, the food was as good as the help was surly. Not 10 words passed between us and the waitresses, but that chicken, perfectly tender and juicy inside with a thin and crispy skin, and that waffle, all big and fat and fluffy and golden brown slightly hinting at cinnamon when you bit into it. Pure heaven.

Cara and Jesper showed up as we finished, and we all strolled down 125th St. toward the river and the Triborough Bridge. It was a long walk, weaving slowly along the sidewalk through the pedestrians and tourists and locals with their folding tables hawking incense and sandals and t-shirts and music and philosophy and anything else you might think of.

Harlan got his when a black man with long braids, dressed as some sort of space commander, flanked by three men dressed similarly, who had been conducting a nonstop stream of urgent and belligerent preaching about something, pointed into Harlan's face and announced that the white man was a bum and a vagabond.

Guess he told your ass, I said.

We walked on.

Many blocks later, we found the intersection we were after, and shortly we were on a bus headed over to the island. We were early, and that meant we had to wait around on the grass before standing and rushing to the front to wait packed together and standing, while other people who arrived later just strolled right in, but hey, we were early.

The show, though, would soon erase whatever we endured to get to it. Jump on over to the Range Life and read all about it.

NYC October 07

Friday, 1.5.07

Friday morning, after coffee and pumpkin bread at the apartment, we headed to the A Train for a ride to Columbus Circle. We got off early to walk through Times Square, a big noisy spectacle whose most memorable features included a singing Naked Cowboy and a tasty potato knish.

The other side of Times Square we reboarded the subway and took it down to the NYU area to Washington Square Park. We roamed the streets for a while, which would become a theme of this trip, before Cathy let me loose in The Strand bookstore. I forget how much I miss having access to good book stores until I'm in one. She left me for about an hour before I got a call asking if I was almost finished. A stack of books under my arm, I realized sadly that I'd never got farther than the fiction section. But, I bought my share and headed out. Great store.

We walked a bit more before stopping for a light lunch snack at Spice Cafe, an Indian place in the area. We had a few appetizers, as we decided our policy for the day would be to eat a little bit, often. The chutneys were outstanding, the roasted chicken very sweet and tasty, and the beer expectedly mediocre.

After this we walked some more, first stopping off at Other Music, a tiny tiny store packed with amazing music. I did some damage to the wallet there, too, before leaving the NYU area and heading to the East Village area.

Cathy took her turn shopping here, though not buying much, and we stopped at Guss' Pickles for some salty snacks to bring back to the apartment before giving in to our impulse to grab a table at Inoteca Wine Bar for another snack. We started with a glass of white each, small wedges of 3 types of cheese, a big bowl full of olives, and crusty bread. It was perfect.


Cathy spotted a shoe store across the street, and I decided I'd rather enjoy a glass of red and the rest of the olives than brave a frantic and pushy looking shoe sale. So I did.

From there we headed to Tompkins Square Park to meet up with Heidi at the dog run there. Quite the busy little patch of dirt that dog park is, divided into big dog land and little dog land, both sections jumping with furry activity.

The three of us walked from the park through Little Italy toward Chinatown, where we planned to meet Michael for dinner. It was a nice walk on a warm night, the streets busy but not terribly crowded or hurried, post-work traffic turning to going-out traffic, restaurants and sidewalks filling with people.

We stopped in Little Italy at a sidewalk cafe for a beer for me and a glass of wine for them, then headed just up the street to The Great New York Noodle, a suspectly-named joint that according to our hosts had amazing and cheap food.



The Noodle did not disappoint. Michael got there and we went in, ushered quickly to a table and asked if we were ready to order almost within seconds. Turnover is life at this place, so we got to it. We got mei fun, some Singapore street noodle dish, along with a fish porridge, a stir-fried snow-pea leaves, barbecued duck with rice, and stir-fried salt-fish with vegetables. And beer.

Man, what a meal. The porridge was the big surprise hit, a creamy and not-too-dense stew of fish and soft veggies, somewhere between gravy and tapioca in consistency, and absolutely loaded with fresh fish flavor. The snow pea leaves were bright and delicious, holding some crunch, and the salt fish was also outstanding. The duck was better than any Chinese barbecue I'd had, moist meat bursting with lightly smoky and sweet flavors.


After dinner we walked a bit, through Chinatown and Little Italy (which I was surprised to see meet at a cross street and butt directly up against one another), and stopped at a coffee shop for some dessert before boarding the A Train for home.

The train ride home was a long one, probably about an hour and a quarter, which explains why the days here would become marathon sessions: leave early in the morning, stay out all day, through dinner and just beyond, before heading northward to Upstate Manhattan, as they called it, for the night.

New York City, October 2007

Thursday, 10.4.07

First off, I've never been to New York. I feel like this admission excuses any ill-formed impressions or factual errors or god forbid misidentification of a neighborhood.

Anyhoo.

New York! What an amazing city. I went in with high expectations, and the Big Apple met and surpassed them--and this without even laying eyes on the Statue of Liberty. The excuse for the trip was an amazing rock show on Randall's Island on Saturday 10.6 (Arcade Fire, LCD Soundsystem, Les Savy Fav, Blonde Redhead, yeah I know I know!), but Cathy and I had been wanting to visit for a while anyway. We planned a long weekend (almost a week) around the show, and we stayed with friends Heidi and Michael up in Inwood, the northernmost area of Manhattan.

We flew in to LaGuardia on Thursday afternoon. We hopped a bus at the airport and took the bus to 125th (in Harlem) where we switched to a subway. The A Train took us all the way to 207th, where we got off.

It was moving toward evening, and we were hungry, so good thing right out of the subway entrance and across the street from our friends' apartment was Grandpa's Pizza, where we scored a slice of fresh mozz and basil before we even got rid of our bags.

Great pizza. It wouldn't be the last time we ate there.

Michael let us up; their apartment was downright spacious from everything I've heard about housing in New York, with a full bedroom off in the back, a decent galley kitchen, and a large room divided into office space and dining space, connected by French doors at the rear to another room, which housed another desk, a futon, the tv, and more books. We spent the rest of the evening chatting over cocktails. I'd never met Michael before, but he's a gracious host and an interesting and funny guy. He's the librarian for The Cloisters, which is the medieval arm of the Met. Built by a Rockefeller in the early part of the century, the building houses, among other art and artifacts, the Unicorn Tapestries.

We were all hungry, so we ordered a whole pie from Grandpa's, this time with mushrooms on half. Again, outstanding, and it still wouldn't be the last time we ate there.

Heidi, a friend from Austin who stood up for Cathy in our wedding, got home from class late that evening and we talked a while longer before heading to bed. We'd be up early the next day, eager to explore the city.

NYC Report Coming Soon

Hi there. I'm working on a blog entry for our recent week in New York. Check back.

Letter from Burma, Lake Day

Hello!!

Thanks for your emails Jack and Hilary. I can't access the article
Hilary but will see it when I get home. Is it about what you did at
the hospital (PTO days)?

And Jack thanks for sending along the info about your friend. We have
spent a lot of time in Shan state which is closer to Chinese border
than to the Thai border. I think the worst fighting is between the
Karen people and government. Shan people are not fighting at this
time and most people we talk to are very happy about that. The
government closes areas to foreigners when there is fighting going on.
Or they make you fly into towns and dont allow you on the roads...
that sounds like what your friend did. I'll be interested to hear
about his experiences!! The areas we have been to are pretty nice...
very very poor but nice people and no fighting. You see what the
government wants you to see...Of course they dont want you to see
anything bad. They control everything.

Mom.. everyone here speaks Burmese and then also their tribal language
(Shan, Intha, Karen etc). Some folks speak broken English and some
not at all. It hasnt been too much of a problem though. Jack I've
used that Point it book a few times and Burmese people like to look
at it to look at all the different pictures of things.There is a high
literacy rate (I think about 80+%) but university graduates usually
cant find any work.

its 9am Saturday here and Christina is still alseep so I'm sending an
email and then will go eat breakfast. We go to bed early (9:30ish) so
its hard for me to stay in bed that long!

Yesterday was an awesome experience. We are at Inle Lake and I hired
a boat driver to take me around for the day for $25. You can go on a
tour with 4-6 people but I hired the whole boat (long wooden boat with
4 seats) so we could go see some different places. We left at 6:15am
and started across the misty cold lake. Saw the fisherman picking up
their nets. Many of the Intha fisherman use their legs to row .. it
looked pertty cool. Arrived at the other end of the lake and walked
around the Thandaung market (held once a week). Only saw 2 other
tourists which was great. The Pa0 and Taung-yo people travel 6
hours down the mountain in ox carts hauling wood to sell to the Intha
people that live on Inle Lake because they don;t have any wood. Inle
Lake/Intha people sell them produce that they grow right in the lake
in floating gardens. The Intha houses on the lake are really cool.
Whole villages live in houses that are built on stilts and you have to
get in a boat just to pop over and say hello to your neighbor. We
rode slowly though some villages and everyone, esp children, come to
the windows and wave and shout minglelava (hello hello!). WIn, the
boat driver told me that 10 years ago the area was closed to
foreigners and they did not have any schools. Now they have a
primary, middle and high school.. all on stilts and all accessable by
boat. Most if not all the people we talk to are very happy to have
tourists around because, as long as the tourist does not do a package
tour and uses local guides, transport, private hotels etc it improves
their economy.

Anyway this is getting too long so I'll make it shorter. We spent the
day visiting pagodas, and villages. In 1 village they only make
pottery. In another they all made rice wine (that was fun stop. except
for the snacks. every house we visited brought out snacks and tea..
always more tea.. snacks at this house were tea, rice wine, and spicy
pig fat/gristle. i tried to be polite and tried a piece of pig fat but
just couldnt swallow it. so i sat there with it in my mouth until i
could discretely spit it out. yukky. also rice wine was firewater).
another village did silk weaving and one place did all bamboo
umbrellas and paper fans. for lunch we had "water chicken". i asked
if it was a duck and Win said "no, water chicken. only found in inle
lake and only in the wintertime". so who knows what it was! tasty
though. we also got invited to a Taung-yo house for tea. They called
down to us (in Burmese) and invited us to their home. It was also up
on stilts but more in the mountains so the animals stayed downstairs.
Win said he'd never been there before. They did not speak a word of
English and about 5 adults and 8 children just sat and stared at me
the whole time. Very friendly,warm and generous people. I gave the
kids a few crayons which they had never seen before and did not know
what they were supposed to do with them.

toilet experience... they were very clean but just a wooden box with a
hole that goes direcly down to the water about 6 feet below. That
can't be good for the water quality. The lake and canal are only used
for washing and fishing I was told. They get their drinking water from
wells.

we ended our day at Win's house where his wife and daughter made us
dinner (more water chicken plus fish, rice, soup).

when we rode back across the lake (10 miles) at sunset i saw the
fisherman putting out their nets. they spend the night in their little
dugout canoes and pick up the nets again at 0630am.

The impression I will leave here with is that these are the most warm
and generous people I have ever met. Sure, not every person is that
way but by far the majority of people are honest and genuinely
interested in where you are from etc etc. It is impossible to walk
down the street (esp when you are alone) without being stopped several
times by someone who wants to know where you are from and if you like
their country. ALso this is by far the most Buddhist country I've been
to. Everyone seems to be a practicing Buddhist and there are monks
and monestaries everywhere. NO matter how poor a family is, they
still donate food and money to support the monestaries.

OK that's all for now! I wanted to write everything down about
yesterday before I forgot. I think my favorite parts were going
through the villages and visiting people's homes. I used up 2 camera
batteries and a full 2g memory card so don't worry.. there will be
plenty of photos :-)

I hope all is well and have a very Happy New Year!! I miss you guys
and look forward to getting home. We fly back to Yangon tomorrow and
will spend New Years Eve there then to Singapore 2 Jan and home 3 Jan.

Take care!
Love,
cathy :-)
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Canoe Trip

The canoe trip was awesome. we had a very nice lady take us in
this flat dug out canoe. first the main canal was busy with
motorboats then we went on calmer side canals and they were beautiful.
everyone raised ducks and pigs it seemed. the pigs eat the algae (or
whatever it is.. looks like algae) from the canals and they looked
very fat and happy. we passed lots of wooden houses on stilts and lots
of beautiful lotus flowers. they are gorgeous flowers.

went to a huge old wooden monestary where there was only one crazy old
monk and 4 novice (little kid) monks. the old one would ask where you
were from then start naming cars from that country... "ohhh japan.
nissan, toyota, panasonic, mazda" then i said us and he said "oh us..
chevrolet" adn to the germans.. oh.. mercedes BMW. you get the idea.
it was pretty funny. we think he was going a bit daffy from being out
in that big old monestary with nothing to do. we watched the sunset
there then the lady took us back. a very nice and relaxing afternoon
and christina also enjoyed it a lot.

another funny thing.. we were looking for this motorboat driver named
win because we heard he was good. i asked a couple people this am
then forgot about it. we were eating lunch at a totally different
area of town and 2 people approached and the guy said this is win you
were looking for him. great communication network. phones dont work
but word of mouth sure does. anyway i'm going with win at 6:15
tomorrow am. we're going to 2 floating markets and a bunch of other
stuff then i'm going to his house for dinner with his family.
christina didnt want to go so early so she'll do a half day trip
tomorrow and we'll ride bikes or go hiking together on saturday.

dinner tonight was fish curry. maybe not quite as yummy as it sounds.
it was a whole fish and took a lot of work to get the meat off. it
was good once we did though. curry here is definitely not the same as
thai curry. again people are so darm nice though. as i'm sitting
here typing someone just brought me tea and orange slices and
"traditional shan dessert". not chocolate but it tastes ok. yesterday
someone brought us a fried banana that was absolutely delicious.. it
had this great coating on it. they gave it to us as a "present".
everyone knows and uses that word here. they give a lot of presents
and usually expect nothing in return.

i better go so i can walk home, take a hot shower and go to bed. it
got really cold last night.. down to 5c in the area which i think is
about 40f. chilly with no heat. very nice and warm and sunny during
the day.

i took a ton of photos today and imagine i'll do the same tomorrow. i
am going to be kicking myself when i'm back home and have to sort all
these photos out!!

Merry Christmas from Mandalay

Hello!!
I hope this finds you happy and healthy and enjoying the holidays. It is 11am Christmas Day here so Christmas Eve should be winding down in the US.

(I can access Hotmail in Bagan through some special program but can't access any of my addresses so Chris if you could send this to our friends and my Dad that would be great!) I can't access Hotmail most places but have been able to access gmail no problem as long as the town has internet access at all (which can be a problem).

Yesterday Christina and I took the boat from Mandalay to Bagan. We started off the day with some trepidation because the "fast boat" was fully booked so we had to take the "slow boat". The difference.. fast boat was $25, mostly tourists and took about 8 hours. Slow boat was $10, mostly locals and took 15 hours. I like boat trips and wasnt too worried but Christina wasnt sure she wanted to sit on a boat that long after our very long (partially miserable) train trip from Hspiaw to Mandalay.

So we got up at 4am and made it to the boat dock. WE got on the boat around 5am and got a good spot along the railing (very important!). WE took off around 5:30.. it was still dark and very foggy and cold. We got to watch a beautiful sunrise and the fog gradually lifted and the day warmed up nicely. There were about 15 or so tourists on the boat and the rest (about 200) were locals. The deck was crammed full of people and at every stop more women streamed on board carrying things on their head to sell. It was always complete chaos when we stopped.. people scrambling to get off the boat, ladies with big trays on their heads pushing their way on and men walking up and down the gangplank balancing heavy bags on their shoulders. Seemed like there were a lot of bags to be unloaded at each stop. The women would run onto the boat and try as hard as they could to get people to buy something before the horn blew then they'd run off again. First stop was the banana stop... about 20 ladies really really really wanted us to buy their bananas. Second stop was chicken stop, 3rd stop was unload many many heavy sacks as fast as you can stop (the guys were flying up and down the gangplank with these heavy bags)4th and 5th stops i don't remember and the final stop was the woven blanket stop. Good timing as it was starting to get chilly again.

SOme of the ladies from the banana stop stay on for the whole ride then take the night bus back to their homes. One lady sat by us for a long time and when she realized we couldnt eat any more bananas she started rubbing my feet. Well it worked like a charm. Soon both Christina and I were getting massages while sitting on the boat deck. I got one at 11am. Then spent a few hours reading and playing with some Burmese children (i brought some sticker books they really liked) and again passing the book of photos from home around (big hit). Around 5pm we thought what the heck.. lets get another massage. So we spent our Christmas Eve watching an amazing sunset floating down the Ayeyarwaddy River while drinking a beer getting our shoulders and feet massaged by 2 Burmese women who felt like they had 6 hands . Utterly fantastic. And only 2000 kyat each time. $1\u003d1250 kyat so less than $2. The ladies were really nice and we gave them some crayons for their kids and a couple shirts.

WHen we finally arrived in Bagan some 15 hours after starting, we were met with the usual throng of people trying to get you to stay at their guesthouse. We luckily had called ahead for a room and there was a man standing in the crowd holding up a sign that said Ms Catherine, USA. Hooray!! He took our bags and we followed him to a horse cart where he loaded us and our bags into the cart and delivered us to our hotel about 15 minutes away.

We ended the evening by meeting the 15 other tourists who had been on the boat for dinner at an Italian restaurant. CHEESE was a wonderful thing after rice and noodles for breakfast/lunch/dinner for the past couple of weeks. There were folks of all ages from France, Australia, UK, USA, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy (one of the Italians was a man traveling by himself who had to be at least 75 years old.. he was quite a character).

Then to bed. Today we\'ll rent bicycles and ride around some of the temples. Bagan is known for having thousands of old temples (i think close to 3000).

All of our days have not been as easy and wonderful as yesterday was but overall the trip has been great and Christmas Eve was perfect.

Merry Chrstmas, Happy New Year to you all and see you in 1 1/2 weeks!

Love,
Cathy :-)
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Back in Mandalay

So last night I got to chat online with Cathy via our Gmail chat device. Very cool. The timing was only a little off, and we got to chat for like a half an hour, which would have been a fortune on the phone.

She often makes the point of how wonderful the people are there. As you'll see in the following e-mail, which she sent upon return to Mandalay from Hsipaw.


we're back in mandalay after 4 wonderful days in hsipaw. i'll tell you
about the train ride first... so many of the good stories have to do
with transport.

the train from mandalay to hspiaw was full for 3 days so we hired a
car for $50 which turned out to be a great deal because he stopped at
the botanical gardens and some caves along the way. it took us most
of the day to get to hspiaw. the bontanical gardens were beautiful
and there was a flower festival going on so lots of lots of people.
it was nice to see burmese people relaxing and enjoying time with
their families because it seems that all they do is work (they are up
around 4am and things close down pretty early at night.. around 9pm).
one thing we thought was funny is there were speakers set up all over
the park BLARING asian music. it was very very loud and not very
relaxing. we were later told the loud music is to please the Nat. the
nat is sort of a spirit that a lot of folks believe in... they want to
keep the spirit happy so good things happen to you. chris.. the
spirit houses in thailand were for something like the nat. they do all
kinds of things to make the nat happy like build him nice little
houses and put offerings in the big bilbao trees and bring him fruit
and rice and beautiful flowers. apparently he also likes loud music.

so after the park we visited some caves that were really amazing.
there were hundreds of different buddah's set up back in the caves
along with little scenes ( fake trees and monks sitting around). we
couldnt figure out how they got all the stuff in there. plus a lot of
the walkway was done in tiny tiles which would have taken forever. it
was very impressive and christina called it a buddah theme park.

we stayed at mr charles guest house in hsipaw which is where most
folks stay. hsipaw is in the hills in the shan state in eastern
myanmar.. very close to the chinese border. the food is more chinese
there and the shan people look more chinese. we rented bikes one day
and rode around to different monestaries and a nat shrine (really
cool.. everyone takes the nat these huge food/fruit and flower
baskets. we asked someone and they said the baskets sit there for a
day then the children come and collect all the food and eat it. we
also went to the nephew of the last shan prince's house... remind me
to tell you more about that later (big brother watching.. phone calls
here are listened to etc etc)

the area around hspiaw is very beautiful.. lots of small farms. we
rode by several villages and gardens. chris you'd be proud of me. i
was mountain biking only with a one speed 100lb tank of a bike. the
roads and paths are terrible here!! i never fell off though. you'd
also be proud at me riding around in the dark like everyone else does.
i dont really like it but it gets dark at 5pm and we had to get home.
lights (on cars, scooters etc) seem to be optional. i havent seen
anyone get hit though and the traffic pattern is definitely mroe
orderly than vietnam. my favorite way to get around is by trishaw
(man on bike ).

anyway back to transport... the train ride from hsipaw to mandalay is
gorgeous. you go past gardens and rolling hills and monestaires and
pagodas. we enjoyed ourselves for the first 8 hours or so. they we
sat at a train station in py o lyn for 3 hours and we lost some steam
there. by the time we left again it was dark so they closed all the
windows on the train when it was cold. many more people had gotten on
at that point .. we had seats but there were people standing and
sitting in the aisles all around us hacking their lungs out. didnt
bother me when the windows were open but between the spitting and
hacking we were ready to be off that train when it finally arrived in
mandalay 13 hours after we left hsipaw. people were very very nice
though. they shared food with us and called us over to their window
when there was something pretty to see. the train car guy would tell
us how long we were supposed to stop at each station so we'd know if
we could get off or not. in short.. the opposite of vietnam. the
photos i brought over are a big hit. they've been looked at by so
many people. they were passed around the train car last night as we
crawled towards mandalay in a train car that was lit only by one
candle that someone had put on our train seat because they thought
we'd like some light. other than that it was pitch black!

Football Part 2

This came shortly after the previous one:

i just popped my head in for the national anthem. it is so cool...
you would love this! the cyber cafe is right outside the stadium so i
can hear everything.

i miss you! i may not be able to write for a few days but i will write
whenever i can. dont worry if you dont hear from me for a few days.
we are staying at the golden mandalay hotel in mandalay (such a great
place.. little cabins on this lake/pond). it is crazy how well they
are treating us... we feel like royalty. we'll be back here in a few
days after hspiaw.

hello to gus and henry! for some reason people really like that photo
of gus. maybe because he is so big and black and all their dogs are
skinny and brown/white.

oh and yesterday we went to a monestary and got to see 1000 monks get
their lunch and eat it silently. very cool. they walk in a line and
their bowls get filled with rice then they chant then eat. i took a
few photos but felt weird about taking them even though it was OK
because they want you to donate to the monestary. i bought a book.

Football in Mandalay

This came Sunday morning, to both me and Jan.

HELLO!!
hope all is well with both of you. internet access is getting a
little more difficult so i wanted to write before we leave for hsipaw
because i dont think there is any there.

we've just come from the first game of the grand royal cup.. we saw
the myanmar under 23 team play malaysia. they won 1-0 which made
everyone very happy. it was definitely a bit daunting at first when
we walked into the stadium with 1000's of fans hopped up on kat leaves
and betel going crazy. that and all the machine guns/police/army made
for quite a scene. everyone is so nice though that it was no problem.
we were quite a spectacle... only white people in the stadium as far
as i could tell and also very few women there at all. the myanmar
national team plays in 1/2 hour and we could get back into the stadium
to see it if we want but christina doesnt want to which is a bummer. i
might see if i can go in just for the national anthem and beginning
procession which was very cool in the first game. they dont sell
popcorn or peanuts. only cigarettes, sunflower seeds and eggs. yes
eggs. not sure if they were boiled or raw but there was a man walking
around selling them. yukky. it was awesome... i'm so glad we got to
go. you arent supposed to reenter the stadium but a man from the
"ministry of physical education" who was in a very official government
uniform said we could come back. christina asked him if we needed a
ticket or stam p or something and he just laughed and said something
that we took to mean "dont worry... we'll remember you" it was pretty
funny.

we have made friends with a trishaw driver that came to the game wityh
us. i paid for his ticket and he came and stood in line at 0700 to
buy them. he's a very nice guy and his friend may drive us to hsipaw
tomorrow. we were supposed to take the train but it is full for 3 days. something about the government buying all the seats.

we\'re staying in a very nice place in mandalay for 20/night. they
treat us like royalty which is a bit embarrasing. and most of their
workers are under 10 years old which is also disturbing. i think they
are all part of the family but they work way too hard for little kids.
one little boy stands outside of our window in the am and as soon as i
come outside he takes cushions to the chairs/table by the pond and
starts bringing us breakfast. they even bring us our toilet paper on
a serving tray! people are SO polite and very interested in you and
where you are from. they even like americans here.

i better go... next game is starting and i\'m going to see if i can
stand in there for awhile. the stadium is pretty gross. there is red
betel spit all over the place and some parts of the walkway are huge
puddles of mud. they do have a big screen though and the game is
televised so people are watching it all over the country.

Mandalay

This e-mail came Friday 12/15.

so yesterday in yangon was amazing. we took the ferry across the
yangon river to dalah and it was a different world over there. it felt
as remote as parts of zimbabwe but you were only a 5 minute ferry ride from
busy yangon. we had a couple of trishaw drivers show us around for 3
hours and i loved it. all the kids ran behind us and everyone stared
but also smiled. people are so friendly.

so christina wasnt feeling well today so i walked around mandalay and
now have a trishaw driver who is showing me around. it is a fun way to
get around and he took me to the stadium where the grand football game
is being held on sunday. first time ever in myanmar. tickets go on
sale sunday at 0700 and i definitely want to go. myanmar vs malaysia.
i am looking for a football jersey for you with the name/numer of the
best player... myohlaingwin #9. zawmyint, my trishaw driving is
sitting here helping me with the spelling and will help get tickets
sunday. he is at university studying japanese.

so i hope miss christina is feeling better tomorrow. she thinks she
ate something weird yesterday. luckily i'm still ok and hungry all the
time. some food is more like chinese but other food is fantastic.. you
would love all of it.

tomorrow i think we'll go visit the 3 ancient cities around mandalay
and then sunday go to football game if we can get tickets. then leave
monday i think for hsipaw. supposed to be an awesome train ride
through the mountains.

more monks here than in thailand and they talk to you a lot which is
different. we will visit some monestaries. i think they like to talk
english and also want donation for their monestary. not too many beer
places/bars. i dont think buddhists drink much and women do not at
all. sure do chew the red stuff though.

Yangon, Part 2

A bit more work, but it still sounds wonderful.

She brought a small photo book with her full of pictures of her and me and her mom and our dogs and Idaho and all sorts of stuff to explain to people where she's from.

Also, I'm editing out parts directed at specific people, or the mushy stuff.

Here's the second e-mail I've got from Cathy:


very nice to hear from you! too bad you're not at work now because i think we could IM. they get around government block of hotmail by signing into a french server so it is very slow but it works. to be honest, we have not noticed a lot of signs of oppression here. people are definitely very very poor but there are a lot of bookstores with current magazines like newsweek and the economist and they get asia CNN so things dont seem to be too restricted in the capitol. i remember it being more restricted in china. one thing though, i looked in the economist because there was supposed to be an article on myanmar in there and i couldnt find it so maybe it was censored.

so yesterday was frustrating. limited tourism facilities combined with high season means lots of full planes and trains. we were going to take train to mandalay tomorrow but all sleepers are full for several days. then wanted to fly toi kentung (near border with thailand.. supposed to be awesome trekking and very remote.. foreigners can only fly there) but flights full until next week (there are only 3 flights a week). so now we are flying to mandalay tomorrow and i'm going to call to see if we can arrange a place to stay.

our place in yangon is full tonight so we dont know what we're going to do but we'll figure something out.

we ate more awesome street food yesterday. sat down on those tiny plastic chairs and ate whatever they gave us. you'd be proud i've been pretty adventurous. yesterday we ate some yellow stuff that looked like noodles but was maybe some kind of tofu? they cut it up then cut a bunch of fresh herbs on it then put a bunch of spoonfuls of chilis and ginger/lemongrass etc and mix it all up and hand it to you. 100 kyat (about a dime!). much more expensive in restaurants. our bill at dinner last night was a whopping $4.

we still think people are very very friendly and they genuinely seem to want to help you. if we stand and look at our book for 30 seconds someone will come up and ask us where we are trying to go. a few people, mostly children have asked for money or food but their approach is very low key compared to anywhere else we've been.

so wish up luck today with our arrangements!! i think we need to actually try to book a few rooms as things seem to be getting full. we hardly see any white people anywhere though.

the photos i brought are a big hit. i pull them out when we are sitting on those little plastic chairs and soon there is a crowd gathered around looking at them. i'm so glad i brought them!

also very glad i brought the small camera because folks are pretty camera shy and it was much easier to walk around the market with that one. i used the big one when we were in more touristy areas where folks were more used to cameras.

i dont mind if you put stuff on blog...as long as it is interesting... a lot of what i write isnt that exciting!

have fun at the cabin this weekend and glad we are getting snow. who knows where either one of us will end up on christmas! there are christmas decorations all over town so they celebrate more than we exxpected.

hello to gussy and henry. i've made 1 dog friend that i see every day. he seems to have an owner but all the dogs run around free and are very skinny. i havent seen anyone chase them away or be mean to them though which is good.

and all the men really do wear skirts (longhi.. not sure how to spell). everyone does. business men wear them with buttondown shirts and ties , it looks cool.

it is 9am now and we are leaving for mandalay at 6am tomorrow. spend a couple days there then take train to hsipaw then not sure.

Greetings from Balmy Yangon

Got this e-mail from Cathy. Sounds like they're doing great. I tried to edit for weird cut and paste glitches but I may have missed some.

Hello!!

its wed am here and i just got done sitting on the street taking photos of people on their way to work. it is amazing how many people they can cram onto a bus or truck or anything with wheels!

everything has been great so far.. no problems at all. i met up with christina in singapore no problem and we flew to yangon. singapore airlines is fantastic.. gourmet food and stunningly beautiful flight attendants dressed in purple. so we were supposed to be picked up at the airport by a man from our hotel but he did not show up. we stood around for a while then got swamped by the inevitable crowd of folks that seem to meet every plane, train and bus in every country "hello hello where you from? taxi taxi??". compared to other places it wasnt bad here at all though and we got a taxi to take us to our place and the man that was supposed to pick us up even paid for it.

yangon is awesome. its like an older more decrepit version of bangkok. it is teeming with activity and street life. little plastic chairs and tables set up all over the place serving all kinds of utterly amazing food.

chris... you would be in heaven. mom... WAY too spicy for you.

i've tried all kinds of things and so far the only thing i didnt like was the grilled chicken skin. it looked good until i bit into it then i gave it to a skinny dog. yesterday we wandered all over the place and walked through some fascinating food markets which happened to be next to a garbage dump. all kinds of fresh fish and veggies and other colorful things that i could not identify. so far i've been eating a lot from street vendors and feel great... i hope it stays that way.

people here have been very nice. they either don't pay much attention to you or smile and say hello. there does not seem to be any resentment towards tourists. last evening we went to the Shwedagon Paya which is a HUGE temple (actually many many temples and dozens and dozens of glittering buddhas. it was bigger and glitzier than anything we saw in thailand. also the monks are more friendly here. i did not think they were supposed to talk to people, especially women, but we had a couple of young ones (maybe14?) following us around the Paya pointing things out to us and acting more like teenage boys than monks.

christina is still sleeping (she does like to sleep late) but that is good because it gives me time to walk around and take photos. today we will try to arrange our train ticket up north. still not sure exactly where we will go from here but we think train to mandalay then hire a driver to take us to hsipaw then train back to mandalay then boat to bagan then hire driver to a few other places then back to yangon for new years. we're actually seen quite a few christmas trees and references to christmas and new years. christina wants to get a room at this 5 star hotel for new years eve which could be fun and it is only $90/night (very cheap for a 5 star hotel, esp split in half) it is so cheap here... tiger beer is about 50 cents, a good meal is $2-3 and a decent place to stay around 10-15/night. its hot and humid but not too bad. i am shiny faced and fuzzy haired though and expect i will remain that way for the entire trip.

that's all for now! i hope all is well and pls give our fat spoiled dogs a pat on the head from me. i have already made a couple dog friends here.

i love you and miss you! chris i wish you were here... you would love yangon.. like bangkok but not quite as hectic and the old coloniel looking architecture. i will take lots of photos, dont worry. :-)

On the Way

An e-mail from Cathy delivered late last night said that she was in the airport in Singapore and had connected with Christina. So, the two of them were waiting together, apparently enjoying the free foot massages that you can get in the Singapore airport. Nice.

The flight went well, and they're moving right along.