The Adventures of Tin Tin

alone but never lonely

2011-11-06T20:44:00.000-08:00

if i hear, "don't you ever get lonely traveling by yourself?" "isn't it all a bit sad to go to these great places all by your lonesome?" "it can't be safe traveling alone to all these countries!" one more time i'm gonna i'm gonna cut a bitch with my Hosteling International card!

the funny thing about traveling alone is that ironically, i'm never really alone.

living in los angeles can be incredibly lonely. my friends live at all corners of the sprawling city and just coordinating lunch can be a challenging endeavor. we all freelance in the film industry so none of us ever have a clue if we're going to get a call to work the day of the lunch or not. it's incredibly frustrating but you get used to it after a while. so i actually feel more alone in my own city than i do when i'm in a strange place in some far flung destination.

for example, the first day of my recent middle east trip in amman, jordan i checked into my hostel and entered an empty dorm. late in the night someone came in with a backpack and fell asleep. in the morning we both woke up and hit it off immediately. for the next 4 days we ventured around the city and braved the busses to small towns. we sampled new foods together and figured out that right now it's better to be american (god bless obama) than danish (the mohammed cartoons). this right here is the greatest thing about staying in hostel. you have a built in social network right when you check in. i like to stay in dorms because i can pick people's brains about where i'm going and they can pick mine about where i've been. where did you like to stay? where did you get bed bugs? wanna have some dinner tonight? my friend in amman, ann mai, became a good friend and when i went back through amman at the end of my trip we were able to catch up and chat into the night.

i prefer staying in female dorms as opposed to mixed dorms because the reality is, women don't smell that bad. i've walked into a mixed dorm and nearly been knocked off my (not so stinky) feet by some random dude's gnarly foot odor. or worse, those guys who wear their stank like a freaking trophy. you know the ones, "duuuude, i've just gotten back from trekking through the amazon for 10 days and it's crazy how like, you don't smell after a while. i feel like a real man, man" duuuude, the hostel will need to burn your mattress when you leave cuz like, man, you frickin REEK! damn hippie wanna-bes.

dorms are quite safe too, in the 12 odd years i've been seriously traveling i've never had anything stolen. most people don't want to carry anything more than what they have crammed into their own pack. and most travelers believe in karma, if i steal something from you, i'm gonna get hit ten fold. having said that, i usually look for lockers that lock in the room to keep my camera, passport, and other valuables safe cuz you just never know. some bitches be shady...

i have stayed in everything from hostels to guesthouses, b and b's to hiltons and even a private island. i have nothing against a nice splurge every now and again but i find that it's nearly impossible to engage any other travelers in a big hotel or resort. most who stay there are coupled up or with their kids or are there on business and therefore have no need to befriend you. even in b and b's and guesthouses it can be challenging to find like minded travelers. the quaint house in a neighborhood is great for getting the feel of being a local and sometimes the family takes you under their wing but there's usually very few other people staying there to explore the city with. but sometimes actually, that's the best thing about staying in one of those accommodations. there are times when i pretend that i've just moved to town and am renting this nice pad. i can shop where the locals shop, get my fruit from where my new "neighbors" get theirs, or just be solitary if i choose to be. and i get the low down on the local gossip from my hosts!

so please don't ever think that traveling alone is lonely. most of the time it's the polar opposite! in restaurants it's rare that the people next to me don't invite me to join. and it's way easier for someone on a bus to start a conversation if you're by yourself. and that's where the best adventures begin! when i was in rural jordan i was riding the local bus when a girl came up next to me and we started chatting. she was super nice, dressed in a pretty hijab and we talked for quite a while. after about 20 minutes she asked me if i would like to come to her family's home for dinner that evening. surprised by the invitation i quickly said yes before reason could take hold. i got off at her stop and we went to her parents house where they had made quite the spread on the floor in my honor! after dinner we started playing dress up with the girls in the family and they dressed me up in proper muslim garb. it was magical! they showed me how to properly do up a headscarf and i spent the rest of the evening feeling incredibly comfortable in my new look. at the end of the night there was hugs for the girls and simple "goodbyes" for the guys. this kindness probably wouldn't have been extended to me had i been with someone else. and it sure as hell wouldn't have happened if i was a man! all the men traveling solo that i met said that they had never been invited to a local's home but nearly all the women i met had been. it's good to be a girl!

and when you're walking on a nice stretch of beach at sunset there's always some nice locals playing soccer and you can join in. or if you're like me, there's usually a handsome young traveler walking down that gorgeous beach right next to me... ; )

don't wait for someone else to fit your dream into their schedule! just freakin' GO!!

Taking the Leap

2011-11-04T12:17:00.000-07:00

after becoming inspired by "the happiness project" (a fabulous book by gretchen rubin) and meeting someone today that kinda kicked me in the arse, i have decided to attempt to post more blogs about being a solo traveler and the beauty and drama that goes along with it.

traveling alone is a gift. i'm able to decide where and when to do whatever i want, which is something that is exceedingly rare for most of us. it's given me opportunities to succeed in something i never thought i'd ever be able to do (white water rafting) and fail miserably and horribly, but in hindsight hilariously (thinking i had arrived at my stop in budapest way earlier than i had expected and lunging myself and heavy backpack off the then moving train only to kill my knees and realize it wasn't my stop after all, much too late).

traveling solo means you are exposed to the kindness of strangers in ways that you couldn't have imagined. it means relying on your wits alone when you are lost, night is falling, and you need to get back to the hostel and you seem to be in a sketchy area. it's the good and the bad and most of all, the beautiful. and it's a lot safer than anyone can imagine! so many women (and men) think that it's dangerous to travel alone. what if i get mugged or worse, raped? what if i lose my atm card and can't get money out? what if i'm followed? what if, what if, WHAT IF??? I live in los angeles and all of those things are more likely to happen in my own city than most other places in the world. i'll never forget how i met a swedish guy in fiji, he asked where i was from. when i said los angeles, he looked at me in horror and said, "but there's gangs and drive-bys and lots of murders there!" it just goes to show it's all perspective. not that i don't take precautions because i do. i take krav maga (israeli self defense) and i don't go out and get wasted in a club when i travel. to some that may sound boring but i like to wake up early and explore a town on foot before the local's work day begins. and since i've had my drink drugged before (in los angeles thank you very much) i don't ever want to feel helpless again, especially in a foreign country. so for me the benefits of not having a hangover and coming in safe far outweigh the bummer of not partying the night away.

my main goal with this new and hopefully improved blog is the show you that it's easy, fun, safe, and cheap to travel solo! don't be afraid to take off by yourself! never wait for someone else to fit your dreams into their schedule. take this opportunity to do what YOU want to do with no reservations or fear. it can be done. i'm walking proof!

The Love of Strangers

2011-09-24T05:19:00.000-07:00

border crossings are usually a joyous thing for me. i love the ritual of handing over the passport, being looked at like i may not be the person in the photo, then them flipping thru the pages of my packed passport looking for a blank page. but this one was a little more stressful than the norm.
in the morning i flew from beirut to amman, then took a taxi 45 minutes to the jordanian border. after passing thru immigration there, i boarded a bus which drove about 15 minutes to the border of israel and i dove into the throbbing mass that was israeli immigration. after sweating it out and pushing my way to the window through what must have been about 200 people i was given the once over and joined another line which brought me to security, then another line brought me to israeli immigration. "where are you going in israel?" the girl said. having been briefed by other travelers to say that i was only going to the israeli side, i replied "jerusalem, tel aviv, haifa. the ususal!" she asked if i was going to the west bank. i said "oh noooo, my mother would kill me! ha!" she stamped me in and i went on my way to the busses to jerusalem. after arriving in jerusalem i hopped a bus straight away to ramallah where my friend moe was waiting for me!
jerusalem is a bustling city and through the kindness of strangers i found the old arab bus station where i caught the bus. the roads are paved well and traffic is orderly. but when we got to the qalandia checkpoint where you cross into the west bank everything changed. first you see the barbed wire. then you see the wall. a massive wall with circular towers looking like it's out of the movie "district 9" imposes itself on your field of vision. there are tanks and armed soldiers everywhere. it looks as if you're entering a prison, and in a way you are. they don't hassle you much getting in so i was thankful for that. when i rounded the bend at the checkpoint the road falls away a bit and there is graffiti on the walls: "free palestine". nothing is as nicely maintained as on the other side of the wall and i find out why later (palestine needs permission from the israeli government to build or maintain ANYTHING). when i arrived at the bus station i meet a man who moved back here from st. louis, missouri and he helped me call moe so i could tell him where i was.
when my friend picked me up, he took me to a hotel where i stayed for the next 3 nights. the hospitality of palestinians is legendary, the give and give, and just when you think there is no more, they give again. i was to learn this repeatedly for my stay. in the west we are unused to such unrestrained generosity, because usually there is an ulterior motive. here, there seems to be none. it's a very strange feeling and i never got totally used to it, i was always trying to pay my way. that's just our custom and as you know, i'm a very independent woman and don't like anyone paying for me. letting someone pay for me was incredibly hard and i always felt a bit uncomfortable about it.
but we had a great time driving around to nablus, bethlehem, jericho, and a million other places i can't remember the names of! the food was amaaazing as well, and the muslims know how to do juice so i indulged as often as i could. shisha was a nice way to relax but i couldn't do it very often as it made my head spin a bit!
the very best part of my trip was hanging out with moe's sisters and thier kids. nadia and i went to jerusalem for the day and ate my favorite food EVER, kneffe. we walked a bit in the old city then went to see al aqsa mosque and the dome of the rock. unfortunately they wouldn't let me in to either place so i had to stay out and admire the beauty of the tile work while my friend prayed.
we left for ramallah again, always avoiding the main checkpoints. sometimes what is 14 kilometers away takes an hour to get there because you can't go certain places, you have to drive all the way around them eating up gas and time. and by the way, gas is $8 a gallon here so you can imagine the cost of commuting. but we were excited because the other sisters were preparing something called "upside down" for me. i had never had it but the dreamy look in thier eyes when they described it clinched the deal. i was dying to try it! when we got back to their home i met all the girls in the family and promptly fell in love. these people have beauty, charm, and humor by the truckload. i was instantly in love with all of them!
when it came time to eat we went to another apartment (they have 3 apartments on the same floor and all live kind of communally, very convenient. although if i lived that close to my family i might have to kill them) and sat around the table. it's called upside down because in the pot the chicken is on the bottom, then the veggies, then the rice. you flip it over onto a big platter and then the order is reversed. it is flipped with a flourish! and the smell! good god it's like nothing else. it's spiced and prepared with love and i really think you can smell that love! they made a salad and an eggplant dish, a yogurt side, and pickled baby eggplants. it was a fabulous spread!
there was talk laughter and even a song. one of the girls, about 15 years old was coerced into singing and i really didn't expect much. most people think they can sing and really they are, at best, mediocre. this girl, this fabulous girl opened her mouth and sang a tune that sent chills down my spine and tears formed in my eyes. even now as i type tears well up in my eyes. du'a has the voice of an angel and i was honored to hear her sing. and another of the girls, rawan, might be a writer one day. she's an incredible girl and has so many talents she need only pick one and she'll be an absolute success. and the younger girls are just so stunningly beautiful i could not take my eyes off of them and so full of love i only hope that one day i can be that open and loving, so completely accepting of a total stranger. thier mothers raised them so well. if we all had mothers so caring and generous this world would not have an ounce of hate in it, the hate would just die out for lack of oxygen.
after we ate there was a surprise for me. the kids disappeared for a few minutes and when they came back they all had a little something in thier hands. i had told them my birthday was coming up and that was the main reason for my trip. it looked like my birthday came early this year! they all went into thier rooms and brought out gifts from thier own belongings for me. a hair clip, a watch, a necklace and bracelets, a pencil box, and a balloon. they presented all this to me and i burst into tears. this was the absolute best birthday i have ever had. these people are the most beautiful people i have ever met. this was the most touching thing that has ever happened to me. it is the very definition of love and i still cannot believe that i have been so blessed to recieve such kindness and love from such good hearted people.
when i left i hated it. i didn't want to leave this home, my new family, this womb of love. i sobbed uncontrollably in the elevator and nid'a held me as we went down. i miss them so much. i'm crying as i write this. i'm so afraid i will never experience this again. i love them all so much, my heart bursts with this love. it is for them that i hope palestine becomes an independent state. it is for them i wish those horrid walls would come down. it is for them that i wish the world would not view palestinians as bad people, as terrorists. they are humans, beautiful compassionate humans who are paying the price for a handful of extremists. they want what we all want: love, freedom, and happiness. i hope they get it. inshallah.

tin tin and the chic sheiks

2011-09-23T05:36:00.000-07:00

beirut. lebanon. 20 years ago and also 4 years ago these were loaded words. back in high school and college "beirut", to me, meant bombs, violence, chaos and bodies in the street. i didn't know what they were fighting over but i knew it was bad and not someplace i would ever imagine going. i remember the holiday inn where snipers took position and just picked people off like it was one of those old time shooting galleries at an amusement park. boy, how things change...
today beirut is cosmopolitan and violently hip. the cafes are packed with women in heels and wearing the latest fasions from milan. the men define the word "metrosexual": sharp suits, expensive shoes and all driving either mercedes or bmw. actually the craziest thing is that even the taxi drivers drive new luxury cars! i climbed in one driven by an old man, a sweet new silver mercedes with black leather interior. i said, "this is your car?" and he said it was. i said, "you drive a fancy car like this as your taxi??" he answered yes. i told him, "if this was my car i wouldn't even let my friends sit in this car much less strangers!" he laughed and said if you are lebanese you drive nice cars, it's the culture. love it!
my first stop after checking in to talal's new hotel, (which is niether new or a hotel, it's a coming apart at the seams hostel but the staff make it like a 4 star hotel) i walked to the beirut souks. it sounds like an exotic place where you buy incense from men in robes but in fact it's a first class shopping mall with every label you can think of and more. levels upon levels of everything from designer clothes to h & m to cafes so chic they wouldn't let me in. it was brutally cool and i felt like the scrubby backpacker i was when walking around there. i decided to see something i hadn't seen a million times (meaning, a mall) and walked all along the corniche to the other side of the city. i didn't realize what a ginormous city this was as it took me a solid hour to walk just half way across. along the way i walked though a small pocket of town that hadn't been renovated, a small bit that was still shell shocked, albeit not as bad as sarajevo 8 years ago, but still noticeable. i walked past the holiday inn which still stands, but barely. the windows gape open and there are pockmarks from guns and what looks like missile hits on the side of the building. i don't know if it's a monument to the past or a neglected piece of real estate waiting for a buyer. smack dab next door is the uber swank Phonecian Hotel. it's shocking to see the war torn next to the posh but somehow bierut pulls it off.
lebanon has so much to offer the traveler. it's a tiny country and i was there for one week but it wasn't enough time to see everything i wanted to. i spent 2 nights in saida in the south and also went to tyre where there are lovely roman ruins. saida has a great souk and i wandered for hours eating sweets and sampling perfumed oils. close to beirut is the Jeita Grotto. it's a cave system of stalagtites and -mites and was so stunning and massive i stood with my mouth agape for a good couple of minutes just willing my brain to take it all in. it was so huge that even after being there for 45 minutes i still couldn't quite grasp the magnitude of what i was seeing.
my favorite, though, was baalbek. i thought it so nice i went twice (ha!)! baalbek is an impeccably excavated roman town in the bekaa region of lebanon. the area is best known as the stronghold of hezbollah and as fate would have it i was there for september 11. hezbollah may not be al qaida but it has a legacy of hate that makes them, to my eyes, quite similar. but even this is not so cut and dry: they also do great work for the poor of the region by building schools, creating opportuniies and giving food to the needy. it seems nothing is ever as clear as we would like it to be. but baalbek is clear! it's massive and everything is built on such a grand scale it's hard to believe that humans constructed it. the jupiter gate is a huge staircase leading to an inner temple area. words cannot describe the magnitude of this structure. and because it's in lebanon and not america you can climb all over the ruins, dart up ancient stairwells that lead to nothing but a better view of the area and sit on fallen columns that, laying down, are taller than i am standing up. my favorite was the temple of bacchus. again, this place must have intimidated the hell outta the local populace because while it was missing its roof, all of the other walls were left standing as well as some ancient frescoes on the inner arch of the entryway. it must have been at least 5 storeys high but there was just one level to it making me feel like i was an ant in a mansion. i have to say, i think that baalbek was better than epheses in turkey. and the kicker was that i had the place pretty much to myself. on both occasions there were maybe 30 people total at the site. and the crazy thing is, every site i went to had very few people in it. one had no one but me and the 3 people i was with. indeed it is a good time to visit the middle east. it's safe and the people are so friendly you think they have an ulterior motive, but they don't!
on the drive back from the bekaa region there are massive posters on every street of the hezbollah leader by himself or with local leaders. it's kinda spooky and my driver didn't really want to talk about it because he didn't want to waste his breath on such an idiot. i appreciated his view. no matter what good they do for thier own people, it doesn't make it right for them to go and kill other people. i'm sure somewhere in the koran it must say something to the effect of "love your nieghbor". i've certainly found that muslims are hospitable and caring to forigners and that thier generosity is unparalled. it's such a shame that some bad apples really must spoil the bunch in some people's eyes.
all in all lebanon was an incredible country. the people made it amazing and the delicious food didn't hurt either. if you're looking for a place that not everyone knows about and has loads of history, nightlife, shopping, and cuisine to die for take a look at lebanon. it will surprise you!

Tin Tin Dreams of Salt

2011-09-21T04:34:00.000-07:00

i never knew i was so popular. or maybe it's just the arab way...
when i got to amman, jordan i found a fanatastic hostel and a fabulous new friend to go along with it. after sleeping like the dead, ann-mai and i decided to explore the city. figuring america might not be the most beloved country in the middle east i started by telling people i was danish like ann-mai. after bush i am still too used to lying about my nationality and will only say that i'm american in certain places (in africa they loooove us now!). they were always saying, "welcome to jordan!" and eventually i tested my luck by saying i was american. i was met with the same love and generosity as when i said i was danish. maybe even more so! savoring this new, surprising sensation i didn't waver when someone asked where i was from. it was almost liberating. people have been so kind and friendly ever since i got here, i feel what it must be like to be a celebrity! and they don't even want anything from you, just wanting to say welcome thier country.
our days consisted of running around ruins, walking everywhere and eating everything. one night we went in search of dinner and saw a long line and people walking away with these small plates and a blissed out look in thier eyes. we immediately joined the line and were rewarded with kneffe. ooooh, beloved kneffe! sweet of my dreams! the one thing i fantasize over at night and long to have the next day! the description doesn't sound too appetizing but my GOD is it good! it's got white creamy cheese on the bottom and some kind of flour with sugar and sweet syrup on top and served hot. it is love and passion in dessert form. you must experience this for yourself!! after dessert we had dinner. it's been pretty much in that order for the past 2 weeks now and i've realized that this is really the way to live!
one of the days we went to a small town called Salt. it was abut 45 minutes from amman and was a quaint place famous for winding streets and the local scenery. we wanted to see the churches because some are quite old. we didn't realize how old they could be until we stumbled across church al-khalid, or st. george's church. when we walked into the courtyard it looked tiny. but when we went into the actual church it was even smaller, it was a cave with carved wooden panels forming the altar area and about 6 rows of pews. i sat in silence for a while and when we got up to leave a man came up to us and gave us a card of st. george, some oil, and a green wristband. i asked how old the church was and he said 360. as in 360 c.e. holy mother of god, this was an ooooold church. he took us back in and showed us a footprint and said that it was st. george's foot. when i looked at the panels again i saw that they were in fact carved dragons and looking around i noticed that all the pictures and icons were of st. george. we walked away awestruck and intent on finding out more on this little nugget of a church. when we got back we both went online and looked for the church. neither one of us found a thing but a couple of photos taken by other travelers. no documentation of any sort. it was like a day dream.

tin tin in a fairy chimney!!

2011-07-14T08:56:00.000-07:00

the ear splitting squeal in my ear and the continuous kicking of my seat harkened the last of my overnight bus journeys. for 11 hours from istanbul to goreme in cappadocia it continued. just when i thought the little fucker was asleep he would squeal at a level that even ted nugent would flinch at. i'm officially too old for this.
i was awake to see the sun rise and awake to see the abrupt beauty of cappadocia. this was indeed the only thing on that ride i was grateful for. spires rose from the baklava colored ground looking for all the world like malformed penises or those long skinny mushooms you see at the market. i prefer the penis analogy! penises EVERWHERE!!! woohoooo!
as i rolled into goreme, a small tourist town laden with hotels and carpet shops, i hobbled out of the bus and got a map. i had reserved a dorm room at the flintstones cave hostel. of course i did, it's got "flintstones" in the name, how could i pass that up?? i found it easily as it's a really small town and asked to see the room. it was dank and crammed with beds. this would not do, i'm in cappa-freakin-docia, land of the fairy chimneys and caves! this is the moment i'm happy to have the choice of staying in a hostel or not. i'm not staying in a pit, i'm gonna find a fairy chimney dammit. high season or no, the chimney will be mine.
i check the bible aka lonely planet guide, and see that the kelebek cave hotel looks good and it's just around the corner. i lug my backpack dead uphill and see a majestic castle. god/allah please have a room for me! i find reception and plop my sweaty self down on the leather couch and look at the woman pleadingly. she checks. flips pages. "i have a fairy chimney for tonight but then you'll have to move to a cave jr. suite. the total is 100euro." done and done. i have a lovely complementary breakfast consisting of olives, honey, figs, spicy things, and a selection of cheese. yes, i am home.
for those who have asked, a fairy chimney is what they call the stone spires that were formed by wind and erosion. they are hollowed out and made into small rooms. mine has steep stairs up to the wooden door and once inside there is one window. it barely holds a twin bed and my backpack and there's no bathroom, it's down those steep stairs near the reception. the only thing i can think of is how interesting this will be when i have to pee in the middle of the night. this invariably happens when i'm staying in places where i don't have a ready toilet. like camping in kenya where there are hippos and crocs in close proximity. or mongolia where you have to walk the length of a football field to get to the hole in the ground. lovely.
the evening in the fairy chimney (i love saying that) was divine and i was well rested for my southern tour the next day. me and a handful of others went to see a roman excavation, a greek village, and a rad ass underground city that was dug over about 500 years through rock. in the 2nd century christians came and took over the area. they lived in relative peace til the 11th century when the muslims came. for a while i think they lived in harmony but then the christians were basically kicked out. i think it was more about the fact that they had some pretty nice farmland than religion, but i'm no expert in this area. the locals lived and worshipped in caves that they carved out of rock. it was cool inside and protected them from invaders and weather. the caves that are exposed now are where the rock has fallen away or eroded and you can see inside thier dwellings. gotta say, it's kinda a sweet place to live. they carved niches for light and places to sit and it's all on view for the modern tourist!
that night i slept in my junior suite which was right next to the pool. i never did go in that pool although it looked inviting. the evenings brought a tasty dinner with sunset views of cappadocia. i didn't want to leave, it was so beautiful!
the next morning i woke before the butt crack of dawn and ambled down the cobbled path to the balloon agency. this was the morning i was to take my first hot air balloon ride! after a bit of coffee we climbed aboard the bus that was to take us to the balloon. the drive over was gorgeous as the light was seeping over the mountains and chimneys and balloons lay still sleeping on the ground. arriving at our balloon, it was just waking up. the fan was blowing a thick flame into the balloon and it was gently rising like a lethargic child. the basket was wicker, just like when ballooning began, and i felt like a was in a child's storybook. about 10 of us piled in and anxiously awaited lift off. when i came i didn't even notice, so subtle and smooth it was. but when i saw the ground giving way to air i realized we were well and truly off!
we ascended quickly and drifted toward a valley. most other balloons were still earth bound and those that were lifting were still below us so we got a fabulous view. i couldn't believe we were flying! it was so solid, no swaying or bumping. i leaned over the side and looked straight down. it was surreal! we floated to the valley then somehow dipped low enough to go in and get a closer look at the caves. it was astounding how we could go so far in with this massive bit of nylon above us. but down we went, so close to the trees it seemed as if the birds may leave the tree and rest in our basket. when it looked like we may hit the end of the valley's cleft we rose gently and kept ascending, now able to see all the other balloons that woke up and took to the sky. there must have been at least 20 others and they were all primary colored like the pictures of balloons that hung on my wall when i was little. we soared over villages and over a man on a donkey who seemed not to have left the 19th century. it was peaceful but with the spurts of fire that roared above. somehow even that was relaxing. i guess because if it wasn't for that noise we would be barrelling towards earth and that would just shatter the moment.
when we landed it was a thump, lift, thump, lift, thump. we landed safely and without incident. which i found slightly unfortunate. i mean, how cool would it be to be in a hot air balloon mishap?? but no, then it was champagne at 7 am. from the smell of our pilot he had been tippling all night. good thing i smelled him after the flight and not before!
now i'm in marmaris, on the southern coast. it's a gorgeous little town and i'm so happy i came. i only came for the ferry to rhodes tomorrow but now i'm quite liking the vibe here. there is just not enough time to enjoy properly this lovely country.

the adventures of tin tin in turkey!

2011-07-11T00:28:00.000-07:00

there was much debate about where i should go this summer. originally it was going to be vietnam, laos, and cambodia but the monsoon and a good job put that on the back burner. i was on set on a wednesday asking the crew where they would go if they only had 2 weeks to travel. i was thinking maybe vanuatu but airfares dissuaded me from that destination and while i'm in that area i may as well see new caledonia as well and time just didn't permit that. so, after "i've been there" and "i need a visa for that", the production designer and traveler tossed out "turkey". lightbulbs went off, angels sang, unicorns peeped thru the looking glass! i had my destination! i booked it the next day and left 3 days later.

i arrived in istanbul half dead to a fantasic hostel (antique hostel in sultanahmet) and crashed and burned in my dorm bed. it was the upper bunk and i'm not so good with those so i nearly fell off a couple times during the night. if it wasn't for my "falling" dreams and the bloody cat outside with it's constant mewing i may have gotten some solid sleep. but the next morning the strong turkish coffee made up for the lack of sleep and i was off and running at the butt crack of dawn.

early morning is the best time to see any city and istanbul didn't fail me. i meandered around the still shut aya sofia and blue mosque as well as the waking winding streets. i wasn't 100% yet and kept stumbling over the cobblestones and tripping over an array of stray cats. if my mother wondered where all the cats in guatemala were, i can safely say thay have all boarded a turkish air flight and found their way to turkey. i love me some kitty but scabby scratchy cats are not my top pick.

soon the aya sofia opened it's doors and i was nearly the first in line. when i enetered the church/mosque/museum it was close to empty. the aya sofia is a massive empty space with lavishly decorated walls, windows and mosaics. the lighting is in the form of spare chandeliers which descend from the high cieling and hang low over the increasing crowd. it gives a gigantic bulding a sort of intimacy. upstairs in the mosque's women's gallery are the remnants of old gold mosaics depicting christ and various saints and patrons. it's a lovely building but didn't speak to me the way i thought it would.

the line for the blue mosque was long and the faithful were in long dress with head covered and the tourists were in shorts and tank tops. just a note, next time you descide to go to another country please be respectful of thier religion and customs. there were entirely too many people with american accents dressed like they are at disneyworld. the blue mosque is a place of worship, not epcot. i digress...

after taking off my shoes and covering my head (with my own scarf thank you very much) i entered paradise. when you step inside with bare feet, the carpet is a shock. it's a delicately patterned red silk carpet and it seems to melt a little with every step i take. and when i look up and around i see tiles of blue and white in designs i cannot imagine to create. it's a riot of fine taste, a melange of eye candy, a pool of cool water in a desert. the domes above and the silk below and the blanket of tile surrounding me almost make me want to convert. but then i would have to wear those long coats and headscarves that make all the women look like they're expecting an imminent downpour and lets face it, that's just not gonna happen. i don't want to leave, i want to curl up on the carpet and melt myself in the glory of this mosque. but crowds surround me and i've been here longer than most so i must leave and join the hordes of tourists now milling about the city.

the next day i take in topkapi palace and the gorgeous harem there. no amount of tile and gold will make me want to join the harem life but i could see the allure for women who really had no other choice of profession other than baby maker and servant. afterward i roam the city. it's massive and seems to go on forever. i cross bridges, smell nasty fish, eat baklava, smell nasty body odor, eat kebabs, sweat and smell badly myself, and eat meze. i must have walked about 10 miles at least and i crashed and burned that night. mewing cat or muezzin couldn't wake me from my brief death of sleep.

i have heard that the bosphorus cruise is great so i took the less (foriegn) touisty option, the ferry. i sat outside and watched the city turn from metropolis to posh neighborhood to normal. the water is clear blue and in some places when the wave of a passing boat rears up, it looks like gorgeous old seaglass. it's loud but at the same time peaceful and when we stop at the end right before the sea i clamber out of the boat and up a steep hill to a crumbling castle that guards the entrance to the strait. i'm sweating but the breeze dries my damp back and helps me descend the hill again.

istanbul is a cosmopolitan city, more european to the glance but as you look a bit longer, it becomes more eastern. the hospitality is warmer than europe but the men are more oppresive (if that's the right word). everyone asks "where are you from" but it's really just a way to get you talking so they can sell you something. having said that, when i asked for directions people are more than happy to help you every way they can. they will chase you down if they see you make a wrong turn and set you to rights again. it's a great place to start to see this beautiful country. i can't wait to see more...

Murambi Memorial, Rwanda

2010-11-23T04:56:00.000-08:00

This is a tough one. I haven't quite known how to begin this blog so I just didn't even start. Last week when I was in Rwanda I went to a town called Butare in the south. It's just north of the Burundi border but a world away. I came because when I passed on the way to Burundi it looked nice and hospitable, kind of a college town. When I left Burundi I just wanted to go somewhere nice and non-threatening and this perfectly fit my desires. Also I had read something in my guidebook about a good genocide memorial here so I hopped off the bus and found my hotel. After throwing my heavy backpack on the bed I made off to a cafe. I don't know how my backpack gets so heavy. I swear, I'm constantly shipping things back to the states and I don't remember buying such heavy things!

At the cafe I met two really cool women traveling alone so we all sat together and talked. Well, kind of. Ema speaks only french and Kamilah speaks both french and english. And I speak only english so it was pretty funny! Kamilah was translating to me in french and to Ema in english and we just watched her get confused and laugh. They are both incredibly well traveled and brutally smart women and we hit it off imediately. After lunch we walked around the town and Kamilah got photography lessons from Ema and I just modeled for the camera (badly). The children in the village watching us tittered and watched us with thier eyes wide open. Foriegners must do some really strange things in thier eyes! We made plans to meet up the next morning so we could go to the memorial together. I was so happy to meet them, they have ended up being one of the highlights of my trip!

In the morning we met at the cafe and got a bus to a moto taxi to the memorial. The moto taxi ride was gorgeous, through the hilly countryside past bicycle taxis and prisoners in orange uniforms working in the fields. When we arrived at the Murambi Genocide Memorial it loked quite desolate. There weren't any other tourists milling around. There was just a gate and a big museum/office building looking place. We were met by a young guard who showed us around a bit. No photos of any kind were allowed and it wasn't until later that I understood why. There were these long concrete buildings arranged in rows over the site. Surrounding these were gorgeous green rolling hills with mud homes and smoking fires in the distance. The landscape was idyllic and lush, really a paradise. As we neared the first of the buildings, he showed us inside a doorway. I looked in and thought, "Why are there plaster sculptures in here?". This was odd. Laying on about 5 large slatted wooden tables were all these sculptures of twisted bodies. As far as I was concerned the sculptures were done badly as the heads on some of them were flattened as if the moisture wilted the plaster. But the smell in this room was really odd. I couldn't place it at all but it was musty, sweet, and sour all at the same time.

We went into the next room, more of the same. The guard wasn't really telling us about what was in the rooms, he was asking where we were from and making small talk. At this point I was starting to realize that these weren't sculptures at all but actual human beings. But why were they so white? And why did the bodies look so strange? Finally an older woman came up and told us we needed a guide, she was one, but she was busy with other tourists. She would be with us in a while.

We stepped out of the room and sat on some steps. At that point things were starting to sink in. This wasn't just a memorial. This site was where mass graves were and these were people that were dug up and placed on tables for our viewing. The young guard kept asking me questions. Asking me about America, asking me if I would support him with his english studies. Asking me for my phone number. E-mail. I'm sorry, does he not see these bodies everywhere? That this place is sacred? That I'm starting to reel in shock form the realization of the shit that went on here? I try to distance myself from him but he follows me. Get this fucking kid away from me with his pleas of "support". What is he talking about anyway?

The guide finally comes back and for the most part the kid leaves us to it. I ask why the bodies are white. She said that they have been covered in lime. Why are the small skulls caved in. She describes what the Hutus did to Tutsi children. They would play soccer with them. They would kick thier heads and wee bodies around like a soccer ball. They would hold them by thier feet and swing them around to bash thier heads against a wall or tree. That is why the heads of the children are flattened. Very few children that I saw escaped this fate. Each room had about 5 tables in it. The tables were made of wood slats and were about waist high. The bodies were thin, white, and bent into positions that are unnatural to say the least. I can see people without hands or without feet. I can see the machete slice of where the achilles tendon was cut. I can see where someone was stabbed in the ribs. I can see someone without the luxury of a head. Some people still had clothes on. For me, for some reason, this was what hit the hardest. A shirt covering, what? Flesh? Bones? I have no idea. There were table of babies. Just babies. Teens, some people had hair still on thier heads. Some had half thier skull missing. I saw bullet wounds and machete wounds. I saw what looked like hammer marks on skulls.

Fifty thousand people were murdered here. Ten survived. Our guide was one of them. Fifty thousand. Can you imagine that? I can't. During the "tour" I felt sick. I felt sicker when we got to where French soldiers played volleyball on top of one of the mass graves. The French were here while all this killing was going on. They did nothing. Correction: they played volleyball. Where was America in 1994? Doing fuck all while these people and more were slaughtered. Oh, that's right, our aid organizations fed, clothed and sheltered the Hutu murderers and refugees in Congo, Burundi, and other countries while doing nothing for the victims still in Rwanda trying to survive and cope with the brutal loss of thier families and friends.

This had been a hard place for me to visit and then to re-visit while writing this blog. I don't know how this went on and the world did nothing. I don't know when this will happen again because I'm sure it's just a matter of time. For all the claims of "Genocide, never again!" I think we all know it can and will happen again and that the west will sit aside and argue over semantics like before. I've been to Auschwitz/Birkenau, Sarajevo, and seen warzones from years past. But something here made it different. There was something unapologetic in the presentation, something unashamed in the display of the bodies. The room after room of bodies. The buidling after building of rooms. The sheer scope of this place is staggering. And there are 2 huge mass graves still unexcavated. I hope they get to rest in peace, it may be the only peace they are likely to have.

Foray into Burundi

2010-11-17T06:46:00.001-08:00

In my quest to conquer every country in the world I could not pass up the opportunity to add Burundi to my list. It's a wee country just south of Rwanda and bookended by Tanzania and Lake Tangyanika. The Lonely Planet had next to no information about the country, only the capital was listed. Surely there's more to see that just another crappy African capital city? I went to investigate.

Crossing the border from Rwanda seemed to be straight forward enough. So naive was I. The Rwandan border post was a clean concrete building, orderly, yellow. Getting out was simple, a form here a smile there and bingo, I'm through. I cross the bridge over the river which divides the two countries. It is only a bridge yet it's a world apart. In this no man's land there were a mass of beggars. Disfigured children and bent old women. Men whose clothing was falling off their bodies in tatters. The only words they seemed to speak were "Money please". I walked faster. More children. I averted my eyes. Where's the fucking border?

It used to be beige, I'm sure of it, but now the building is brownish. Entree and Sortie painted half-hazardly in what used to be red. The entry and exit were side by side and the mass of people from my bus trying to get into this god forsaken little plot of land was heaving towards the window. What's the rush? Why all the pushing? Are they giving out free food here or what? Having been in these kind of lines before I press my way to the front just like everyone else. Like it's so dire that I get to the window before you do that my brain might burst if I don't. I fill out the form and someone grabs my pen from my hand. I grab it right back and give him a dirty look. I finally get to the window and the guard looks through my passport trying to find the exit stamp from Rwanda. I have a lot of stamps and this takes him a good 3 minuites. He then demands $20 for the visa. I take out my US dollars from my hidden money belt and hand him a $20. He examines it and finds a small tear on the side. No good. I give him another, the process is repeated and he finds another small tear. This happens with the 5 $20's I have in my belt. All have slight imperfections. I'm laughing at this point because most US dollars have something wrong with them unless they are brand spanking new or counterfeit. He doesn't find this funny at all and I pay him in Rwandese Francs.

Upon formally entering the Burundi the difference in civic pride and foreign aid is abundantly clear. This place is seriously impoverished. Rwanda with its perfectly manicured and terraced fields melts into Burundi with its awkward gardens and wild spaces. The women wear intensely bright colors, flourescents, as if to counterbalance the utter brown-ness of this place. The men wear torn western clothing rejects. I even see someone with a UCLA sweatshirt which has been torn and seems to be decentigrating on his very body. Something tells me he didn't go to UCLA. Children in litteral rags run beside the bus screaming. I can't figure out what all the fuss is until someone throws thier empty water bottle from the window and the kids rush to get it. Holy shit, this place is what the future will look like after the apocalyse.

Homes are built of mud bricks and have corrugated tin roofing. The homes are not the worst I've ever seen. For some reason Kenya had the most dire living conditions I've ever witnessed. I thought Kenya was better off than here but apparently there's way more corruption in Kenya and the money feeds the politicians and not the people. But electricity and running water are unheard of here and I see many children gathering water from muddy rivers and carrying it home in old yellow oil bottles on top of thier heads. Women carry heavy loads of wood and charcoal on their heads and men push bikes up the steep hills if they are so lucky to have a bike. Most don't. Men don't seem to do much hard labor here, I see them on the street side talking with thier friends. Maybe I just haven't seen them in action.

Bujumbura, the capital, feels immediately strange. My inner radar is going off so I try to check into the best hotel in town. Reception informs me that there is no hot water, no electricity meaning no air con, no internet and no tv. All this at $140 a night. Yeeeeah right. They see my backpack and tell me of a cheaper place blocks away. I find it, check in and love the place. The staff is friendly, the food not terrible and it has tv and even internet in the room! And it's $40 a night! I'm a lucky broad! I talk to the staff about Burundi and they tell me some strange tales indeed.

Hotel workers make about $100 a month. Police make $8 a month and so they take bribes to supplement thier income. When I say "take bribes" I mean, "fleece the public". They were surprised to hear that we don't have to pay the police to get out of some made up charge. Rent is $200 a month and how this all balances with $100pay a month is beyond me. They are 5 years out of the civil war and women with no man to support them roam the streets at night with thier children looking for food. I saw this with my own eyes. Two women and 5 children wandering around at night on the street looking behind cars and in bins. The goverment is incredibly corrupt too and elections are challenging and rigged. Buju is situated on Lake Tangyanika and at night you can look across to the lights of Congo and see where the UN camps are. UN's lights are white and laid out neatly, locals are yellowish and sparse. This place hurts my soul.

I have hope though and the next morning I am determined to see the city and what it has to offer. During breakfast I look out over the streets and see the dirt and despair of the city. Then I realize, I don't see any women. No foriegners either but that's not worrisome. No women is worrisome. I ditch the idea of going on a motorbike around the city as my white skin and my femaleness may be a target. I ask about a car taxi. The man informs me that from the hotel to the bank (I desperately need local cash) (1 km) and then to the lake (4 kms) and back to the hotel will cost me $20. I am stunned, $20?? For about 10 kms total (6 miles)??? No freaking way! When I arrived I was told by new friends on the bus that the fare for anywhere around the city should be about $2. I was charged $3 to get to the hotel. I was also charged $5 when I decided not to stick around and get anally raped by the outrageous charges that seem to be par for the course out here. Burundi doesn't seem to want tourism, that's the only thing I can think of. The country is shaky as it is and doesn't get but a handful of tourists every day (and I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt there, I saw 1 person leaving at the border crossing and 1 person walking the street when I was leaving). I would think that locals would want to show off the beauty of thier country not batter you with outrageous rates that make it prohibitively expensive to enjoy the surroundings. And for those wondering why I didn't just walk the 10 kms it just felt too unsafe to be walking around alone. I listen to my inner voice, it's rarely wrong.

I left Burundi the next day. I had booked 2 nights but only stayed one. The desperation was more than I could bear. If I saw one more woman scavenging the street at night I might lose my shit. The border crossing this time was easy, Rwanda seemed to welcome me back in her lush green lap and I felt as if I could breathe again. It was nice to be back...

Diary of a Muzungu

2010-11-17T06:32:00.000-08:00

I have almost forgotten my name. It's not that I've been here for so long or have amnesia and i'm not drunk (yet). I only hear "Muzungu!" when I walk around. Or when I board a bus. When I breathe I hear it too. Muzungu means white person. It's not derogatory or said in a sneering way. It's simply a form of address like, "Miss" or "Sir". It's for either sex and any nationality. I've warmed to it, when someone shouts "Muzungu!" from a shop when I walk by I turn and smile and wave. Women in the marketplace yell it to call my attention to thier wares. Children say it laughingly and with joy in thier faces. One day my taxi driver was taking me around and kids kept yelling "muzungu" at me. He asked me, "In your country when people see an African, what do they yell?" I just kinda laughed. If it had been 70 years ago maybe what they would have yelled would not have been done in such a nice way. I said that we don't yell anything because we have a very mixed society: whites, blacks, asians, latinos, etc. He told me that he had heard that whites and blacks could marry there but he didn't believe it (I'm so not making this shit up). I told him that we have many interracial marriages and it's really quite normal. He looked at me shocked and said, "So I can marry a white woman??" I told him that was fine and then he asked me how he could move to America.

Lala Salama in Lamu

2010-10-29T05:02:00.000-07:00

For the first time in two weeks I slept soundly. The call to prayer did not jar me awake, it only nudged me gently to turn me over and then back to solid slumber. "Lala salama" means "sleep well" in swahili and it's really the only thing besides "jambo" that I can recall at a moments notice. It's still foreign in all ways to be but is slowly coming to me in bits and pieces. The Swahili language lessons on my ipod still sound greek to me but one day soon I will be able to speak a bit more,hopefully.
I've been on this stunner of an island for about 5 days now and each day brings more calm, more friends, and more great places to eat. It's quite compact here but offers many diversions: sailing in a dhow, sunning on the beach, eating, shopping, etc. It's not overwhelmed with tourists and I'm easily recognized by people after the second day of being here. For the most part it's a nice recognition, "good to see you, how are you?" not a bothersome, "when are you taking my dhow trip??"
The island is overwhelmingly muslim. The call to prayer is heard in every quarter and many times day and night. The call is not synchronized so they all start a few minutes apart from each other and some imams have lovelier voices than their nieghbor. On the roof terrace of my guesthouse I just lay there and listen for the directions from which the calls come. Women walk by covered in black robes with only their eyes peering through. At night they are apparitions and shadows brushing by me as I pass them in the alleyways. Children scream "Jambo!" at me like I'm well known for my deafness and alternately run away from me laughing or grab my hand and try to walk with me wherever I may go. The kids are enchanting and they have no fear of strangers. Their dirty faces and torn clothing at odds with the pristine woman at their side with flowing black robes and colored head scarf. I smile at the women but they give no indication of if they are smiling back or sneering. The men are totally fine here, no real leering looks or stealthy grabbing in the narrow passages. Drinking is at a minimum and crime isn't tolerated but jobs are at a premium so there are some strong words spoken between men occasionally but that's about it.
When I got to Lamu I arrived by a local boat. It was loaded down with packages and people to the likes of which I have never experienced. I was actually thinking, if the boat were to sink at least I would have some cash and my passport on me as I had my moneybelt on. And I was pleased to see that we didn't go too far from the shore at any time as I could always swim for it. The things you think about sometimes! At the jetty a small man met me and grabbed my dirty backpack, hoisted it on his shoulder, and led me to my guesthouse. Good thing someone showed me the way as there are only 2 street-like lanes in the town. The rest is a warren of narrow alleys and tunnels that make a labrynth seem like child's play. After I dumped everything off I started to explore, trying to remember landmarks along the way. Unfortunately when I was trying to find my way home I forgot to look for the donkey orphanage which was my cue to enter the main lane that I take home. After an hour and a half of searching I stumbled upon the guesthouse from a totally different direction. Maybe if I appealed to Allah I would have made it back faster.
Lamu was established in 1370 and enjoyed a bit of a boom in the 1500's and 1600's. It was a major trading port and the style of the town is proof of the heavy Arab trade going on here. The lanes are narrow and shaded, the buildings of stone or coral. There are drains coming from each home that flow down to the sea. I don't think they carry sewage though as they don't smell at all. There's a nice fruit and vegetable market in the center and beside it a meat market and a separate fish market too. Nothing is refrigerated, it's all out in the open just like back in the day. To walk through Lamu is to step back in time, it all seems staged for the camera but I don't remember putting them all through wardrobe. It's incredible.
Yesterday I went on a dhow trip. A dhow is a wooden boat with a large triangular sail that moves around to different positions, all of which seem to knock me off my feet. It also tilts precariously close to the edge most times sending me skittering to the other side of the boat trying to balance it out and, in my mind at least,to keep it from tipping over. The engine didn't seem to work either. This was discovered before we even left the dock but the captain figured he could fix it during lunch. This didn't work out quite the way he thought and we had to sail the entire time. This wasn't so bad,we just couldn't go out to the Indian Ocean because we couldn't get back if we did. Poop. Captain Abdul kept trying to get me to snorkel but the water was murky and the few fish we did see didn't exactly impress upon me the necessity to strap on a mask and snorkel the smelled like ass. But the beaches were gorgeous and the water refreshing, the sun relenting and the ride relaxing. Couldn't ask for more really! We stopped on a white beach for a drink and a swim and on the way back Nassir (the second captain) and I strutted down the beach arm in arm singing "Karma Chameleon" at the top of our lungs. It was pretty magical.
I'm staying longer on Lamu than I anticipated because the flights out of here are fully booked most of the time. I don't mind though, it's a gorgeous place to be stranded...

On Safari in the Mara

2010-10-21T21:30:00.000-07:00

The dusk was rapidly descending on the Mara when I arrived. I was shown to my cabin in the hushed light by my guide, dumped my excessively large backpack on the floor and fell atop my mattress which thankfully wasn't swaying and dusty from the road. The journey to get to the Masai Mara was a long one filled with dust and diesel fumes that I sucked in when I wasn't paying attention. The safari started at Lake Baringo north of Nairobi, about six bone crushing hours north in fact. When I arrived at the camp it was still light and I set up my tent near the lake but careful not to be too close to the waters edge or the deep ditch that ran behind me. That ditch was the hippopatumuses path and I wanted to steer very far away from that. Hippos, while cute and seemingly cuddly, are one of the most dangerous animals in Africa. If you get between them and the water they can charge. They're faster than they look to be. Not so cute and cuddly after all.
As I slowly walked to the lake's edge I made sure to keep my eyes open for crocodiles. They may be big but they blend in well with thier surroundings and I was nearly stepping on a baby croc before I saw it, mouth agape waiting for a dumbass like myself to offer themself as a meal. I kept at a safe distance and when night finally fell I went to the shore with my headlamp and shone it on the water. When two red eyes glow back at you, you know you've found a croc. I found the baby still in the same place (his eyes were close together) and there was a large croc swimming lazily in the water just offshore (eyes were far apart). Somewhere in the blackness I heard a hippo's wet sigh. I couldn't hear it go under, only gently splash at times. It's kind of soothing.
At 4:50 am something scraped my tent. I know the time because I wanted to know what time I was going to meet the grim reaper. It must have been a stick. Three minutes later I hear the wet sigh of a hippo not 10 yards from my tent. I freeze. I don't hear him walk, only breathe. This isn't pleasant. My bladder is already full to bursting and this isn't helping matters at all. I had to pee at 10:30 but it was dark and I can hold it. Now, maybe not so much. About 30 minutes later I just can't hold it any more and I strap my lamp on my head and make my way to the outhouses that are about 150 yards away. On the way back to my tent, relieved, I hear a sigh. I stop and look toward the ditch to my right. A hippo lazily turning his head towards me. Not recalling hippo protocol, I snatch my lamp from my head and bury it in my chest. Do I freeze? Do I scare him with my light? Do I run? All questions to ask at breakfast tomorrow. Shit. When I feel him saunter off I dive into my tent and cease to breathe. Like a tent will save my sorry ass.

The next morning we drive to Lake Bogoria which is famed for its flamingos that live there in droves. They are stunning but don't let me get close enough for a great photo op. That's okay, just to be there is enough. The lake reflects the large hill behind it and even the smell of the sulfurous water is kind of a tonic. Then it's back in the Jeep for another segment of soul beating road. Along the way we go on safari at the Lake Nakuru national park and overnight in the tent there. I was warned that the next day would be punishing and it delivered. The road to Masai Mara is a road of penance. Potholed and dusty is merely the beginning of the description. I cannot bear to elaborate, it still hurts me today. There is a game drive heading towards the camp and I look for all kinds of beasts. Loads of gazelles, I ask him to stop for them repeatedly. Little was I to suspect that I would tire of them all too quickly. Wildebeest, zebras, elephants, topi, and warthogs! Seriously gorgeous animals! Off in the distance we spot a swarm of Jeeps, a good sign. As we barrel toward them I speculate that there are lions there. So right I was! Two sleepy sleepy lions surrounded by about seven Jeeps. They couldn't care less. They didn't even lift thier heads when we rumbled up, seemingly more jaded than I.
There is only so long you can watch sleeping lions (shockingly this is so) and off we went. Not too far away, no jeeps around I spot two more sleeping lionesses. Must have been a hell of a double date!
Suddenly, we spot a cheetah with her cubs. So cute I may have to kill myslelf if I don't die first. We watch them for a while, then spot gazelles in the distance. So does she and she trots off with cubs in tow towards them. The gazelles don't really notice and the family keeps to a bush in the shade. The gazelles graze closer to her. And closer. She crouches. I saw her whole body tense up and spring like an arrow towards the gazelles. The gazelles are temporarily confused, they scatter but some closer to the cheetah, some further away from her. They finally get it togeher and bolt, the cheetah fixes on one and bears down on her fast. Clawed with jaws locked around it's neck, the rest of the pack are safe. The cheetah has it's dinner. Still and powerful, she crouches with the gazelles neck locked solid in her mouth, life drains from the animal and eventually the mother drags the carcass to a bush. The cubs are called and tumble out of that bush and into the mother's. A feast was had as thier mouths tore open the hide and thier lips were rimmed with red.
Dusk is threatening and off we head to basecamp. After dinner, I tuck into my bed and drift to sleep. "Whoooooop!" "Whoooooop!!" I know that sound. Hyenas. Hyenas travel in packs and love them some food. I check my breath. It smells like chicken. We didn't have chicken. Shit.
Morning came and another game drive. More of the above but this time: a leopard! Fan-freaking-tastic! He was in a tree and was hard to spot but when he started shimmying down it was fast and furious and in seconds he was gone into the ravine. I got the shot! I have now seen all of the Big 5, sweet! More giraffes, more warthogs (babies this time!), more lions (and 5 babies), and just about everything else in the zoo. The best part of all was the wildebeest and zebras crossing the Mara River. On one bank was a mass of beasts, and the opposite bank was a very fat croc. The animals saw him and moved to another crossing point just upriver. We waited, trucks lining the banks waiting for this miricle of nature. One wildebeest makes the plunge, immediately others follow. There is a line of wildebeests swimming across but the river is strong and the line goes slack. The juveniles are having trouble fighting the flow. But they continue the fight and make it to the bank. Then the zebras come, clumsy into the river, graceful swimmers, and clumsy out up the bank. It looks like they all make it, no casualties. The whole process took about 40 minutes and in the life or death struggle it felt like an eternity. I totally get why the migration is so spectacular now.
I sit out the next drive that afternoon and was happy I did, no one spotted anything great. How quickly we get used to splendor.
The morning of departure we do a quickie game drive and immediately see more lion juveniles, ostriches with babies, giraffes with babies, and hyenas with a juvenile. It was all sorts of awesomeness!
Back in Nairobi now, happy to be away from bone jarring expeditions for now. Give me a couple of days, I'll be ready for another...

war is a bitch

2010-01-11T08:56:00.000-08:00

suddenly, there was cocaine everywhere. disembarking from the bus i stepped into a cloud of it but then, quickly, foam followed. shit, seriously? ok, maybe it wasn´t cocaine...
from the moment i arrived in popayan i knew that something was afoot. when i stepped off the bus there was a man in front of me with a can of spray foam in each hand shooting all the passengers with all the gusto of a farc rebel. bienveniedos a popayan. i grabbed my backpack from the rear of the bus and swooped into the first taxi i saw. foam popped softly in my left ear as i told the driver where to take me. all i could ask him about the foam attack was "¿porque? ¿porque?" i sounded like nancy kerrigan when she got hammered by tanya harding, "why? why?" from what i could understand there is a festival going on and people are crazy. this explained nothing. was it a catholic holy war? a new outbreak of crime? what??
asking at the reception of the hostel, they informed me that it was the blancos y negros festival and the next few days would be filled with black oil paint, white powder (they call it talc but i think it may be something a bit more illicit), and spray foam. brilliant. fucking brilliant. DAYS of this?? the girl advised me not to fight it as there was no help for it. just "enjoy" the melee and smile. ha! the foam had not stopped popping in my ear and i hear this outrage. smile indeed...
i was starving from the bus ride and so found a place nearby to eat. i stayed near the walls and thought invisible thoughts. peered around every corner before launching myself across the street in the hopes i wouldn´t get hit. luckily i completed my task unscathed and high tailed it back to the hostel.
the next morning i was still not resigned to getting bombed with crap so i took the bus (the station was covered in powder and festive debris) to a small town called silvia. a liesurely walk around this pueblito renowned for it´s indigenous population would be just the thing to restore my charred faith in humanity. i saw another traveler on the bus and sat next to her. come to find out we met the night before at the hostel and became fast friends. she wanted to escape the madness of popayan as well so this was a good sign that things were only centered in popayan.
on the way to silvia lush valleys passed our window and a drizzle of rain punctuated by the occasional suns rays. but then silvia. as we edged closer we saw refugees from a cocaine war. white powder in thier hair and on thier faces like they fell face first into escobar´s secret stash. this doesn´t look promising. stepping gingerly from the bus we were determined to avoid this mess. so we looked for a cafe to warm our tummies and to plan a strategy. the first cafe was filled with cocaine refugees. we looked for another cafe. a roving band of youths looking like ghosts saw our clothing unscathed and attacked us. a small child reached up and smeared our faces with black grease paint while one of her co-horts filled my ear (same one) with foam and someone threw powder on my back. my friend simone and i ran away and when we looked at each other it was in horror. we were marked women. down another street searching for a bloody cafe we were hit again and again by little fuckers bent on covering every bit of us that retained any hint of color. we found a cafe and collapsed. after eating our yummy sancocho (soup with chicken) we thought of ways to escape the town with the least amount of damage done to our psyches. stay on the small streets, the outskirts seemed to be the way to go so we exited the cafe with the steath of freedom fighters trying to elude the government forces. we waited til the coast was clear of gangs and walked briskly down the road. i spotted a stand where they sold foam so i armed myself vowing to only use it in self defense. we made it clean to the next block and then the next. we ducked into stores and crouched behind cars and took off down a hill toward the river where we thought we might be safe. along the way we saw an encampment of revelers there to celebrate. there must have been about 40 tents and a few boats on the small man made lake. a car drove by... FOAM! bastards hit us through a slit in the window. i chased them on foot fo a bit but gave up the chase when a nearly fell in the mud. i was a woman possessed. i was crusty and crackly and not in the mood to be fucked with. the next person was gonna get popped.
we walked more and got hit a few more times but nothing of any consequence. i hit back and felt a bit more empowered and brave. i know how the soldier feels the first time he kills a man. the first time was hard and i had guilt. the second time was easier. and it just got better from there. we had to make our way back to the center of town where all the action was in order to get a bus back to popayan. this 3 hour tour was turning into a regular gilligan´s island. slowly approaching where the busses congregate, the 2 blocks to the bus was a mine field. there was no escaping some damage and we got powdered and sprayed badly by a gang of malcontents and i retaliated heroically by blasting one of the offenders in the face with an extended blast of foam. next obstacle was a man on a truck. bastard got me good. i got him better. the bus stop was a block and a half away at this point and no sooner did we notice this than a girl threw a handful of white powder in my face and blocked out my vision. woman down! woman down! simone was hit too and we ran a bit through the crowd to get away. i had my foam can cocked as we walked behind a big truck. there were two girls relatively unscathed and one of them said "no! por favor!" she thought i would hit her. i was like, "no! don´t worry!" come to find out they were from barcelona and we formed a bit of an alliance. we crept closer to the corner where only across the street was the bus. it was safe there perched above the action. we watched the mayhem and debated the best way to cross the street. keep in mind that the street here was like baghdad during "shock and awe". so much powder in the air you would think my ex-boyfriends were having a night out. foam flew through the air and the white bus disappeared and materialized before our eyes. screw it, let´s go! we sprinted across the road through bursts of fire, my own can at the ready, retaliating when i could. which bus? which bus?? ticket office! ticket office! ticket office under extreme fire, waited til man ran out of ammunition and ran in. bus to popayan? this one, last two seats. sweet. throwing ourselves into the van i slammed the doow and we took off. it took forever to get out as cars and motorcycles were not exempt and attacks took place right outside of the van. we saw a masterly steath attack where one rebel group attacked another with such vehemence that i actually found it admirable! i took lots of pictures from the safety of the car and got sprayed on the window right in front of my face for my efforts. war jounalists, you have my sympathy.
on the drive back i started drying off and it made my super itchy. back at the hostel i showered with vigor. for the second time on this trip i was finding strange things in my crevices. when i told people that i had gotten hit with powder, my friend jr said, are you sure it was just powder? this is colombia after all! maybe they were just trying to use up some of the reserves from america´s "war on drugs". i did have trouble sleeping that night...

the company of cockroaches

2010-01-05T12:52:00.000-08:00

things i have learned in the last 5 days:
1. long distance bus rides and fat people sitting next to you do not mix
2. i am not impervious to sunburn
3. cockroaches really don´t bother me
4. always listen to your friends advice

new years eve i decided to go whate water rafting. only this water was more of a cafe con leche color not the frothy cappuchino with extra foam. after rafting the horrendously terrifying zambezi this summer, i opted to steer clear of the class 4 and 5 water that most young backpackers are rabid for and go for the elderly fanny packer route of the class 2 and 3 option. actually, fanny packer would be a great term for people like my parents that travel. i´m totally owning that term. anyhoo, the fanny packer adventure was totally my speed. we started the trip by flipping into the water (nice and gently unlike the stealthy black hole whirlpool that sucked my ass under in zambia) and that´s when i found out the water was muy frio. an iced cafe con leche, if you please. scrambling back on we did some "rafting lite" thru some little rapids. nothing scary but really quite nice and gentle. the guide did like to make us row quite a lot and once again, the word adelante was my nemesis. adelante means forward in spanish and when i first went white water rafting in panama i learned very quickly that adelante meant to dig in til your arms felt like jelly. but all in all the route was lovely, meandering through a wooded area while splashing the other rafts made the hour pass quickly.
new years for me was kinda crap as my tummy was bothering me and i had a long travel day the next day and so i spent midnight laying in my bed listening to the fireworks and the festivities. which is usually how i spend it at home so it was no great loss. i needed my sleep because the next day brought one of the most hellacious bus rides of my travel life. i started at 4pm on a minibus to bucaramanga which everyone said is 2 hours away. it took nearly 4 hours and i sat next to the loudest man in all of christendom. the whole time he chatted away into his cellphone which i swear he was unaware that one does not have to scream into the phone to be heard. i seriously doubt the people on the other end needed to actual phone as they could have heard him through the mountains and over the plains. meaniwhile the pergnant woman beside him was barfing quietly into a plastic bag possibly because if the winding roads but more likely because she looked near to bursting. but nevertheless, i got to the bus station in time to get on my overnighter to cartagena.
this is where i learned lesson one. the driver must have been descended from an Andretti because the way he took the turns and his silent but deadly ability to brake without any warning made the trip impossible to sleep. i was too damned concerned with staying in my seat and not starting a mosh pit with my overwieght but charming neighbor.
cartagena met me with an alarming headache, one which has stayed with me since that drive. when i recovered i took on the old city and ate and shopped til the sun went down. ambling back to the hostel, my headache has reached a tolerable level and i slept like a baby. the next morning i planned to go to the volcano cum mudbath. that sounded really bad but it stays... i ascended the stairs to the top of the volcano then decended to the depths of muddy hell. dantes inferno but with skin softening properties. men meet you when you descend the ladder and promply feel you up under the pretense of giving you a massage. after literally floating you from one part of the pool to the next it is then your challenge to keep an upright bob while trying not to grab onto anyone else. granted, no one cares if you grab them or not as all inhibitions seem to melt away when you are covered in mud. after you have gotten your fill of mud, literally and figuratively, you are free to leave and ascend the ladder back to the top where you get frisked and whisked off by yet another man. then to the lake where a lady rubs you clean with muddy water, asks you to remove your bottoms and scrubs them before your very eyes. for all this, people are tipped and thanked and we are herded back into the van for the uncomfortable ride home. but didn´t my skin feel great the next day!
that is, until i learned lesson two.
the day after the volcano i went to islas del rosario and playa blanca which are in the beautiful carribean water. i got my snorkle on and saw some pretty fishies then got stung by some ungodly water creature. i wanted to get some sun with my fun and so didn´t apply sunblock. i never really wear it anyway as i tan so easily. not this time. i forgot that i didn´t lay down a base tan before i left so got really scorched. playa blanca was a gorgeous white sand beach and i lazed around working on my scorch and playing in the warm water. when later i took off my suit it looked like a had only revealed a white suit beneath my colored one. my face looked the same where my glasses were. ah, but who really cares?
lesson three was learned upon my return as i found a roach crawling away from mz backpack. i swear, some creatures will do anything to get to america.
lesson four was when i heeded my friend charlies advice and came to salento where i am right now. its a lovely little town in the coffee growing areas of the country and when i arrived they were having a festival! normally its a sleepy little place but right now there is lots to do and bands playing at night. so i think i will be staying for a few days longer than i thought. found a great little guesthouse right in the middle of things and it will make a nice break from sleeping 6 to a room and the company of cockroaches.

arepas by lightbulb

2009-12-30T17:14:00.000-08:00

well it's about damn time i left the country again. this time i have chosen colombia. after spending christmas with the parental units and a one day delay after my plane to miami was cancelled i landed in bogota. hopping into a taxi i was confronted with my utter lack of language skills in the departamente de español. the driver was very patient and laughed away my bad or nonexistent conjugation opting instead to enquire about if i had a husband and did i like to dance. the latter question being the go to for any latin american male when hitting on a woman. ¿te gusta bailar? or something to that effect. strangely my husband had to work and could not accompany me on this trip and after i showed him how to "cabbage patch" he quickly dropped that line of questioning. can't for the life of me fathom why...
i checked into my hostel which was featured on Globetrekker. i was expecting something pretty rad, after all, it was featured on TV and anything on TV can't be bad for you! au contraire mon frere. i was checked into a room that was freeeezing but thankfully empty of all other takers. there was a hole in the floor covered by a broken tile and the bathroom looked a bit sketchy. but for one night i have slept in worse places and so i curled into a ball and shivered under my meager blankets. at some point in the night i realized a companion had joined me but by that time i was warm and zonked right back out. morning came and after i had my wet wipe bath (the showers were out of the question) i returned to an empty room. my partner in sleep returned and since we both spoke english we had a bit of brekkie and conversation. AND he bought me breakfast! not every man i sleep with has given me that honor so i was well pleased. ha!
i hot tailed it outta bogota and made my way to san gil. it was a seven hour bus ride through twisting vistas and mountain landscapes. green and stunning was the view but green and queasy was my disposition. seven hours of bobbing and weaving makes tin tin a nauseated bunny. there was the usual snack and drink vendors hopping on and off the bus at random. i had a yummy bready cheesy guava jam filled snack. can't tell you what it was called but i would point to it again gladly. my favorite was a man who came on and as the bus started heading down the highway he launched into a spiel about his wares. "ahem! ladies and gentleman i would like to direct your attention to the center of the aisle" or something of that sort in spanish. he proceeded to bring out a ratchet set, a small radio with a tiny flashlight attached, a large flashlight with a small radio, a flashlight with a strange disco multi colored light function, a mani pedi set, and the piece de resistance- watches made by "tommy", "puma", "addidas", et al. this was fallen upon like a drunk on a hooker by the legions of now interested patrons. everyone had to touch them and fondle them and after about 45 minutes of pawing the goods the gentleman left the bus with i'm sure, a fat pocket.
san gil is a nice little town on a river. hailed as the adventure capital of colombia it provides a plethora of activities some of which i will partake in and some which i will abstain from. first up was paragliding. i said i would start the new year off doing that but since rafting wasn't available that day it would have to do. and truth be told, i just couldn't wait! the minivan twisted up dirt roads for about an hour til it got to the hill top where the madness would commence. while i waited for my turn i met a great family of about 30 people. they were from colombia and atlanta and new york. funny, outgoing, and cerveza loving they occupied my time and i theirs til it was time to fly. as i got strapped in, time went by quickly and before i had time to get scared we were airborne and i was staring at tree tops and a lush valley below. getting settled in the sky i was too awestruck to scream or even to oooh and aaah. there were about 8 other paragliders in the air at the same time weaving in and out of each other. it was quiet in the air and really serene. as we flew over others it seemed wondrous to me that i was not only above the birds but above other gliders as well. the 15 minutes passed by entirely too fast and we were attempting to land before i was ready to. the landing was smooth and i just wanted to do it again!
back on the ground my new friends and i chatted the day away and watched the others take off and land. strangely, my van that i came in went m.i.a. and i ended up hopping a ride with my new friends the Maya family. sometimes life is serendipidous that way. it was dark when we made a detour into a tiny town called curiti on the way back and ate empanadas and arepas with cheese made by a sweet old woman in the central plaza that she made by the light of a bulb. she was overwhelmed by the family and diego decided to help out her rush hour by spearing little potatoes and attempting to sell them to passers by. he also took her carefully made arepas and slapped them on the hot griddle so we could eat all the faster. it was really funny and the others sitting near the stall got some hot arepas as well. the family probably made her week! back in the van and back in san gil i sadly waved goodbye to my new favorite people. diego and some of his family lives in bogota so i'll have some cool people to ring when i get there. the paragliding was spectacular but meeting that family was the highlight of the day. such good and generous people are easy to find if you just open yourself to the possibility. i may need to open myself up to find them at home in l.a. maybe, just maybe...

tin tin tries to kiss a cheetah but ends up on a hog

2009-07-29T08:50:00.000-07:00

i cannot believe it has been so long since i have written! so much has happened in the past 20 days i can't even begin to begin!
but...to begin

i have fallen in love with cape town. it's a passionate affair and one whose first blush has not faded, only grown a deeper red. the city is vibrant, colorful, languages weave in and out of each other and even english sounds like an indecipherable tongue. it is intense but serenely calm and the food is damn tasty! i don't want to part but my plane will leave tonight and i must be on it if only to put my affairs in order and figure out a way to make this my home. it's all taken me by surprise (like a good affair should) and i only hope that i have the balls to go through with the move. but, let's talk about these intervening days between now and my last post.

swaziland, zululand, and innumerable stops in south africa have all passed my window. friends and travel companions have come and gone in an endless parade of smiling faces and loving embraces. some remain but most have gone on their way with pictures of me on their camera that have found their way to facebook. some pictures not so good! but when i have a backpack strapped to my back, glamour is not a priority!

one of my favorite memories happened just a few days ago in kalk bay. this is a small coastal town close to cape town with a very laid back vibe. i took the train in and wandered around the town in search of a place to stay. i stumbled upon the kalk bay guesthouse and the owner, costa made me feel right at home. his friend graham was visiting him and we chatted while costa finished up on the phone so by the time he hung up, graham (or grumpy/grumpalicious) and i were old friends. they invited me to a braai that night but i had a date with a penguin in boulders beach. the penguins are famous here and rightly so, there's about a billon of them (slight exaggeration) and they are all just chillin on this fantastic stretch of sand and rocks. some swim but at thier own risk as there are sharks out there. like of the great white variety. not so nice. but there are also whales and those are very beautiful and make up for the carnage of the great whites, almost. it seems that everyone loves the sharks out here (south african men are of the extreme manly strain) and apparently they get a bad rap. i don't know about all this, i just think they're scary and you couldn't get me in that water for all the sushi in japan. mmmm sushi...

i did miss the braai but they asked me to the rugby match the next day and i happily accepted. i've never seen rugby played before so i didn't know if i was gonna be bored outta my skull or was going to like it. we went to a bar at hout bay right on the water and when the game started, i was intrigued. grumpy was very patient and explained all the plays and what the hell was going on. i fell in love with the game not only for the fast pace (unlike american football where there are time outs
every minute) but because the guys wear these short shorts and wrestle each other around the field. damn, i love rugby! new favorite sport! the south africa springboks played the new zealand all blacks and s.a. kicked their asses. it was a good game if only for all the great new friends i met and the laughs we had.

the next day they invited me to go on a motorcycle ride all along the cape. costa has a bmw motorbike (pimpin ain't easy) so the ride was smooth and stylish because of my sweet leather jacket that he let me wear! i looked like a proper biker babe! we rode for the day along the coastline checking out the bays and beaches and breakfast joints of cape town. they belong to a motorcycle club who's saying is "growing old, disgracefully" and they wear leather vests with badges and patches making them look really tough. i knew that they were a bunch of dooses (i don't know if the spelling is right but it means wimp, but a stronger word for it)! i made some great new friends and i will miss them loads.

about a week ago i went to oodtshoorn which is the ostrich capital of the world. here you can see ostrich farms, ride them and eat thier eggs (fluffier than chicken eggs). BUT there was the option to go to a place where you can pet baby cheetahs. i chose that one. there were tons of animals like white tigers, lions, leopards, and snakes and meercats all on display kind of like a zoo but cooler. you could pet the white tigers, juvenile cheetahs and baby cheetahs. i chose the latter two. the juvies were very testy and kept leaping away when you tried to touch them. one lept away from my friend and then locked eyes with me and pounced toward me. fortunately a keeper saw this and put himself in front of me. but i'll never forget the feeling of being prey to his predator. locking eyes with a wild animal with nothing but ground to separate us. not a good feeling. the baby cheetahs were another thing altogether. they were playful and frisky as kittens with that sweet wild look in thier eyes. there were 3 of them in the room and when i went in they all pounced on me and started gnawing my boots and pants and arms. sooo sweet with their kitten breath! i tried to kiss them but everytime i got too close the keeper would pry them from me. i don't know if he was afraid for me of the kitten! but i kept trying to kiss them and the keeper kept pulling them away. they were fun to play with though and it's something i will never forget.

i'm sad that this trip is coming to an end as it's been such an amazing experience. i've learned so much about life, kindness, and possibility. the generosity of people here is outstanding and selfless. i want to be them when i grow up...
love to you all!!
tin tin

tin tin gets her swazi on

2009-07-09T01:29:00.000-07:00

after leaving the paradise that is mozambique, we headed toward swaziland. for lunch we stopped at the side of the road where a gaggle of women were at the well pumping away into thier jerry cans. we got permission to set up and soon a bunch of kids arrived and began hovering around the truck where we were preparing our food. i remembered the hackey sack in my purse so i retrieved it and began showing the kids how to play. that i can't play hackey sack doesn't really matter as we were soon throwing it and kicking it, getting all the kids involved and some of the adults coming home from church. some of the girls from our group joined in and it was a great free-for-all as we made asses of ourselves and whooped it up. while we ate, people surrounded our circle, watching us help ourselves to massive quantities of fresh food. it was awkward and eerie being watched so intently as we got our fill and some went for seconds. but after our group ate we gave the food to the crowd that had gathered and it was much appreciated but, i fear no where near enough for the mouths to be fed. i tried to start a round of hokey pokey (no qualms about looking like a fool) and most of the kids just stared at me and giggled into thier rags. one woman and one child played along a bit, as much as they could sharing no language but of dance and play.

before we got to swaziland we spent the night in maputo, the capital of mozambique. it had a distinctly european flair to it with wide tree lined boulevards. it felt good, like a central american capital where the spanish had made thier mark. at dusk we all went to dinner down the beach road and feasted on massive, delicious prawns. as we walked back about 6 kids came up to us and were just walking beside us. i say kids, and they were about 8-12 years old, but they were smoking and i felt a menacing air about them. i was thankful we had some men with us. remembering my experience in nicaragua, i shoved my passport down my pants and wallet up my sleeve under cover of darkness. if these kids turned and had knives (maputo is dangerous at night and it's not advisable to walk down the road that we were walking on) at least they would just get my camera and lipgloss (it's loss would be more devastating than the camera!). luckily, we were safe but the flashbacks of nicaragua were enough to keep me on my toes.

swaziland was superb! very clean, the bathrooms were spotless and actually had toilet paper in them! after weeks of "bush peeing", which is hopping off the truck and popping a squat behind a thorny bush while trying to conceal my bare bum from passers by, an actal bathroom, a CLEAN bathroom was a luxury i didn't expect!

swaziland had many unexpected pleasures, our accomadations were in beehive huts. these are made of dry grasses woven into a hive-like shape with low doors and even included a bathroom in every single hut! with hot water!!! it was bliss! i know you are thinking i'm off my rocker but these things are rare and when you get them you feel like you're staying at the ritz!
we all did a village tour where we met the chief (a woman!) and learned some of the swazi language, songs and crafts. it sounds silly but was really very cool. the songs are songs that they actually sing during the day while they are working and the unsure sounds of our voices mixed with the strong harmonies of the locals was beautiful.

earlier in the day i went to a handicrafts market and one of the shop women asked me where i was from. i said "america" and she looks at me with a long slow smile and says, "ooooh, obamaland!" at that moment i was so proud to be american. everyone here says what a great man he is and ask me what i think of him. needless to say i gush with love over him and they seem very proud of his african roots. for the first time in many years i can hold my head up and say that i'm american. it's no small feat to have the world turn around and go from dispising us to loving us so quickly. and they did dispise us, after 70 countries i know this unequivically.

now i'm back in south africa in zululand. i'm near a hippo sanctaury and after dark these massive beasts roam the main street. looking both ways takes on a whole new meaning. it's not the cars that will kill you here, it's the hippos! it's nice to be back in civilization but i'm missing the experiences of the past week. may have to be coming back to this neck of the woods soon...

TinTin's Whale (Shark) Tale

2009-07-04T03:56:00.000-07:00

the last destination i went to was the azores. on that trip i took a whalewatching excursion on which i saw no whales. zero, zip, nada. so now i'm in mozambique and i decide to do an excursion where you can snorlke with whale sharks. now, i'm not sure if whale sharks are whales or sharks, just that they are very, very big. like juveniles are 3-6 meters long kind of big. i'm scared of the deep and since that's where these creatures live i was apprehensive about doing something like this but when would i ever get the chance to see these beasts again? what the hell, let's try it out...
after surf launching the boat in huge waves (meaning you push the boat thru the waves then scramble on however you can when the boat is just over your head) we climbed up and scaled down massive swells of sea. people started feeling sick pretty much right away as the sea was rough and not very friendly to our delicate stomachs. the water was a clear blue green (equal parts of each shade making a deep color of seaglass) and salty as my naughty sense of humor. as we were making our way to whale shark alley, in the distance our "ocean safari" guide spots some humpback whales. we haul ass to get there, jetting over the waves and landing with a thud on the other side of them. when we get close to the whales we see them breeching and flapping about. i've never seen anything so breathtaking. these massive creatures flopping about in the water propelling themselves upward and landing with such force that we could hear the splash clearly even though we were at a very safe distance from all the action. then one of them juts his tail out of the water and starts waving it like the local kids do at us gringos (more properly, mzungus). then a fin comes out and they are waving at the same time! i don't know what this means in whale language but embarrassingly, i waved back. there were 3 whales just hanging out showing thier skills and we watched for a good half an hour. romour had it that there weren't any whale sharks to be seen that morning and i was happier than anything just wathcing this spectacle. but the guides pressed on and we went in search of the elusive whale shark...
the 7 km stretch of sea here in tofo beach, mozambique has the greatest concentration of juvenile whale sharks in the world. it's uber famous for this and manta rays that reach a 6 meter wide wingspan. we search for a while and a whale shark is spotted, 2 other boats zoom into the area with us and all of a sudden everyone jumps out of the boat with snorkle gear on (except me, i'm freaked out and have to wait 3 minutes til everyone clears from the boat). when i filanlly jump i see the whale and stay near the back and to the side of him, the safest place to be. these animals are plankton eaters but thier mouths are very wide and it's not nice to look in the gaping maw of an animal this freaking huge. the one i saw was about 5-6 meters long. i know this because i was close to his tail and the rest of his body loomed in the distance. it was very peaceful when all of a sudden 30 snorklers with fins flapping and snorkles pointing north decended upon me. they were all going in the same direction in a serious hurry following the whale. this kinda freaked me out a bit as fins in my face, getting dangerously close to knocking my mask off is not the stuff of dreams to me, curiously enough. so i looked for the boat and struggled back on and flopped on the floor very gracefully.
some of the others came back and we tok off to get in front of the whale so we could see him again. when me and my friend jumped back in the water we see that we are right in front of the creature, right by the aforementioned gaping maw. power flipping to get away from this intimidating part of the animal and silently screaming, i again got trampled by the mass of snorklers. they reminded me of rush hour commuters rushing to get on the subway all following the same flow, to the same destination. fine on land, not so much in the water. enough for me.
it was a lovely day and i learned a lesson. i thoughti would be scared of the whale shark. but i was very calm around it. it was the humans that scared me. i don't know what the whale shark is capable of but i do know what humans are and in the struggle, who knows what will happen?
tomorrow we head to maputo and i am not looking forward to leaving this idyllic place. waaah! not fair at all!

Tin Tin and the Leering Hippo

2009-06-23T05:50:00.000-07:00

so right now, just this moment, i'm sitting in an internet cafe in botswana listening to country music. where is the justice in this world???
i joined the gap adventures tour several days ago and it's my first foray into group travel. me and set iteneraries don't really get along but we have a truce right now. i left zambia with the group and entered namibia the next day. we have spent the past 3 days there only in the panhandle area where the okovango delta is. it was really lovely and when we arrived we hopped on a boat to view the sunset from the river. the temperature really drops at night and i have been freezing in my tent. it's all camping and i'm getting used to wet wipe baths and shaking out my shoes again. the food is great and the people are all young and fun. it's almost all women (17) with only 4 men.
after a sleep punctuated by hippo snorts and the soft splash of crocodiles sliding into the water (no bathroom breaks for me in the middle of the night!) i awoke as rested as could be expected with a bladder near to bursting. after we all got ready, 10 of us went on a mokoro (local canoes) excursion to see a wee bit of the vast delta. as we pushed off i sank back into my stiff seat and clung on for dear life as the flat bottomed boat swayed as the "captain" standing at the back paddled away. there's 2 passengers and the "captain" on each mokoro. we saw loads of violet bellied rollers and brown tipped fluff mongers and whatever else he was saying as i clung (still) for my very life to the edge of the paltry hunk of fiberglass they call a boat. it was supposed to be out of carved wood but progress has taken away the aesthetic of the locals and they use fiberglass that resembles wood only if you're very intoxicated.
suddenly we hear snorting and slashing in the near distance. "shhhhh, hippos. don't yell or make movements, they may charge. very violent hippos are and very territorial" says our guide. sweet, and we're in a glorified rubber ducky. as we come up to the hippos we stay as close to the reeds on one side of the river as possible. you never get between a hippo and the land when he's in the water, just in case you find yourself in this situation sometime in the near future. there's like 6 of them and they are all peering at us with only their eyes and ears above the water line. their eyes follow the boats as we glide along, no one makes a peep so we're doing well so far. cameras click but that's the only noise around besides the yellow footed poopy potter mating call. we keep going down the river, rolling as it were, on a river. rolling, rolling on a river...
we get to another bunch of hippos and there's more this time, maybe 10 with a couple of babies. the alpha male is checking us out following the boats with his beady little eyes. we stop and perch by the reeds on the opposite bank to watch the action and to fill our memory cards. some of them go under water and then emerge with a spray and a snort. some are bored and yawn with their gaping maws open far enough to see their tonsils. it's a lovely sight and very intimidating too. the alpha is not buying our, "we're only tourists" routine and he comes closer. now, hippos kill more humans than any other animal in africa. they charge and are fast as hell. they also weigh about 2 tons and are all muscle. very scary...
he comes closer. the guides are getting a little nervous as the alpha isn't having any of out shit. there's a baby to protect and he's taking his job very seriously. we make the move to leave and he LEAPS out of the water! the guides are trying to haul ass outta the reeds but there's 5 boats and we bump into each other all the time. he LEAPS again! he obviously means business and we all kinda focus on escape. it was really beautiful watching this massive animal swim and leap like that.
later on down the river we see a croc about 5 meters long. awesome, i think i'll go swimming later...
that night i have my first game drive and i'm really diggin it! i saw zebras, sables, kudu, elephants, and even giraffes! the giraffes were my fave. when they gallop away it looks like they are doing it in slow motion because their legs and neck flow together but reeeeealy sloooowly. and they're sooo tall! the zebras are awesome too, the stripes are so vivid and perfect it doesn't look real. the sunsets and sunrises are beyond beautiful here, probably the best i've ever seen. there's a quality to the light at sunset that look like the sky is afire.
now i'm in botswana and i head to a rhino sanctuary in a couple of days, can't wait! lots of love to you all!!!
tin tin

The Flight of the Tin Tin Over Mosi-O-Tunya

2009-06-19T01:37:00.000-07:00

yesterday i went back to victoria falls just to make sure that movie magic didn't make it appear and a giant sound stage would be in it's place. lo and behold, the falls remain! they are astounding and the pictures that i will post (have to wait til i get home!) will not even begin to show you the splendor of the falls. they are massive. MASSIVE! only when the wind blows the right way does the mist part enough for you to see the bottom and then it's only for a second or two. i'm obsessed with the falls. i heard that if i went to the zimbabwe side the view was much better, not so much mist (the mist from the falls rises about a half mile in the air, it looks like something is on fire when you look across the savannah) and you can see the entire length of the falls which is about a mile long. but crossing the border was something i wasn't too keen on doing as i have heard that zimbabwe is a bit rough and i was alone. i asked a couple of locals and another lone female tourist and they all said that i would be fine, so off i went.
it was 2 km from border post to border post over a long bridge that spans the gorge. it was lined with men selling trinkets that walk with you from end to end in the hopes of befriending you enough that you will buy something in the end to "feed their starving families". sad but really annoying as well as i felt i was a dollar sign that talked and that they could flirt with. but a dollar sign nonetheless. but i made it to the other side, went thru customs where i picked up a bunch of other young men selling their wares. no escape. the falls on the zim side were infinitely better, it's mind boggling the magnitude of water that falls from the edge. it's stealthy and swift and what goes over the edge is not to be retrieved. apparently a hippo went over the edge a week ago and there's an odd smell when you raft now. there's lots of trails on the zim side and i wandered around there for as long as i could. i had to get back to the hostel though as i had a date with a microlight at 3:30! indeed, there was nothing to worry about in zimbabwe.
a microlight is basically a kite with a small engine on the back. the pilot is in front and one passenger is in the back. that would be me. the whole thing is open to the air just like a hang glider and it's steered in the same way. i've never been on one before but many people that i met said it was the highlight of thier trip so of couse i need to do this.
it's like a plane when you take off (albeit one with a lawnmower engine) and it's airborne quickly. i hang on so tight my knuckles may pop from the pressure. the pilot says "wave to the camera!". mmm, yeah, not so much. there's a small camera on the wing that takes pictures of the whole excursion, i bought the cd, don't worry! i'll post a ton of pix when i get home. the internet connection here is brutally slow and it would take me just short of an eon to upload one photo. the flight can be bumpy as you can feel every wave of air and every breeze that floats past. but the pilot was great and i didn't plummet to my death. this time...
we swept over the falls several times staying above the mist and i saw how the falls and the zambezi were really laid out. nothing like i thought it was before! it's a gash in the earth in which the water plummets and throughout the millenia the water has carved a snake in the earth leading from the falls. it's incredible! i can't get enough ! we sail thru rainbows and over the many islands in the upper zambezi. i saw hippos congregating underwater, elephants laying with a baby elephant, loads of impalas, and even a bunch of giraffes! they're incredibly graceful and i can't wait to see one from the ground!it was a gorgeous trip and now, not only am i hooked on white water rafting, i may have to microlight whenever there is one around!
by the way, the local name for vic falls is mosi-o tunya which means "the smoke that thunders" which is a very accurate description of the falls!
lots of love!
tin tin

Tin Tin Takes it Up the Zambezi on the First Date

2009-06-17T01:07:00.000-07:00

the zambezi. giver of abundant life for some, an appetizer to death for others. for me, it would be the latter. ok, not death but a very scary underwater panic for me.
i really like white water rafting. i mostly love the scenery that you can see no other way. the wildlife, the rocks, the sky above, and just a bit of excitement when you go thru the rapids. we started by getting down to the river via a very steep path of loose rocks. i think it's actually the path of a waterfal in the rainy season, it's that steep. halfway down my thighs are shaking with the exertion of keeping my balance and finding my next step. it takes about 35-45 minutes to get down and by the time we all get down, i'm pooped. after a brief safety lesson, 6 of us hop in a raft with our super awesome guide vinnie . we grab our oars and start to paddle away from the shore into the middle of the river. the day is lovely, the sky blue, and the river green and cool. one stroke, two, three...i'm underwater and i must have just exhaled because there is no air in my lungs. i don't know which way is up and the river is rushing down my nose. i think i opened my eyes because i'm surrounded by green and i see bubbles everywhere. i'm patiently waiting for my lifejacket to buoy me to the surface but for some reason it doesn't seem to be happening. i'm sure all this happened in a matter of seconds but for me, being under water is terrifying as my immediate reaction to going under is to breathe in. don't ask me why...
after what seems like forever, my head hits something and i fugure out later that it was the raft that i hit. eventually i pop up to the surface, gasp for air and try to find the raft. 4 out of 6 of us have fallen over and there's a scramble to get back on the raft. we find out later that it was a whirlpool area that is a stealthy tipper of rafts. somewhere down the line i scrape up my ankle and am a gimpy paddler for the rest of the day. everyone is excited about the dunk but i'm terrified that it will happen again. i don't know if i can go thru that again in a class IV rapid with white water swirling over my head and me gulping down water. the rapids here are no joke and this stretch is famous for crazy rapids, holes, and whirlpools. i start to regret my decision to raft here.
but the river is a lady to me today (albeit a tempermental one) and we go into some other rapids that are insane but fortunately for me, we don't tip over in any of them much to the dissapointment of the other rafters. i, for one, am thanking ganesh for removing my obstacles for me!
the next day my body is ripped apart as if by wild rhinos and my legs are so destroyed from the climb down that i don't feel how the muscles in my arms ache too. i cancel my trip to the falls for that day and reschedule it for today alone with a zip line ride that takes me right by the waterfall! yesterday i took a sunset cruise down the zambezi and saw crocs and my very first hippo! they're so cute with thier eyes that peer over the water line and blowing water out of thier noses so that the spray is like a little geyser! so sweet! i'm still sore today and probably will be for at least 3 more days. thankfully i should be recovered by the time the tour starts on friday.
it's interesting because i have met an ungodly number of americans here. at least half the people i meet are americans which is starange because i have never met so many in one place before! i haven't even met a german yet! and they're EVERWHERE! lots of aussies and canadians too. its a great start to a big trip and i hope that everything goes as smoothly for the rest of my trip.
lots of love!
tin tin

Tin Tin and the Song of the Santorini

2009-05-23T16:33:00.000-07:00

oh my god, will this guy ever shut up? granted, it was novel and even beautiful at first but at hour 5 is a bit annoying especially as i had just drifted off in what had to be one of the most uncomfortable positions i have yet to be in. the waves bobbing our ferry around lulled me into a fitful rest (much needed after moo's marathon snoring sessions) and i had exhausted the good sleeping positions on the floor so now i was on the seats shoving my body into 3 segmented seats and somehow conning myself into a short lived but much deserved nap.

but this dude. this little drunk dude in a plaid shirt is singing again. his voice is high and penetrating and he seems to know every portuguese song ever recorded. when he started singing as we left the dock, me and moo smiled and enjoyed it. what a character, what a great voice, what a lovely diversion from a dull 6 hour ride. and so he sang. and sang.

maybe his buddies were plying him with booze, maybe he needed no liquid encouragement, so on and on he sang. and sang...

he left the area for a while though because i slept for a bit but now he sings again and the rest of the passengers i fear will mutiny.

as we dock in Terceira he sings one last burst and the crowd laughs and claps a bit but mostly we snicker to each other about how crazy this dude is. language is not needed in these situations, we all understand each other perfectly.

I had been calling our new friend Ken since we knew when we were going to Terceira. he never answered and we were pretty bummed as ken was super cool and really smart and he lived here on the island. we met ken at the boston airport in the security line. he's american but he's lived in terceira for 3 years with his very large family. he does some kind of work out here but has his hand in just about everything AND he's a major Knights Templar buff. i dabble a bit in that history so we have a bit in common. that and his home sits on a crumbled fort site that dates back to the 1500's and he's found some old coins there so i want to dig up his yard.

after staying the night in a not so nice hostel, we pack up, rent another car (manual transmission again) and head out to see another part of the island. it takes maybe an hour to drive around the island and we find a great little seaside town called Praia da Vitoria, check into the swankiest place in town and ring ken one more time. this time he picks up and he says, "where are you?" "we're in praia, where are you?" "stay there, i'm coming to get you" he meets us in 10 minutes and says that his horse is getting saddled up, he's taking us on a carriage ride to show us the sights. SWEET! he takes the keys to our car (he has NO idea how happy that has made me) and we make our way to his house where the carriage is. the driver is so cool looking with his tweed hat and wellies and the carriage is goooorgeous. we stumble in and ramble off to see some old forts and the beach. there's a lot of history here in the islands and most of the juicy stuff is Templar related. some of the templars came here when they were persecuted by various kings and the catholic church and they flourished here. the streets are inlaid with templar crosses and there are mini churches next to the big catholic ones where they practice the templar version of catholicism. also, there are festivals and traditions that are only practiced here that come from templar traditions, like the guarding of crowns by certain townsfolk. it's fascinating and ken has made a study of all this so he is unbearably intriguing to talk to.

after the carriage ride, we meet his family and he takes us to different churches, mini churches and even takes me into a home where they are holding the crowns. it's incredible and ancient and opaque and i need to know more about it! as the day and our trip draws to a close we realize that one of the best days of our trip came out of no where, a chance meeting with a stranger, a call picked up, and trust placed in someone we had no reason to. this is one of the best things about traveling to me. giving yourself over to perfect strangers and trusting that they will not only take care of you but enrich your life in ways you could not guess. me and moo had a fantastic time, we ate (mostly crappy food), we drove (ummm, not so well), and we got to be together. and that was truly wonderful, just to share the experience with someone you love, that is a part of you literally and figuratively. now we just have to figure out where to go next...

Tin Tin in the Azores

2009-05-18T16:27:00.000-07:00

aaaah, the fresh air... how will my lungs ever adjust to all the smog back home??
these past few days and next few have been engulfed in a huge catholic festval. something about jesus cristo do milagro, but don´t hold me to that! yesterday was the big blowout with a 5 hour long procession around town with the bishop and all his minions following a massive flower covered statue of jesus around town. the pathway was laid with a carpet of greenery and brightly colored woodshavings and flowers that formed all kinds of patterns for the entire length of the procession. it was well over 2 miles long and throngs of faithful lined the cobbled streets. we waited for about 2 hours for it to start as we wanted to get a good view of it all, and thankful that we did because masses of people came from nowhere and took up every available place in the main plaza where we were. when it started a line of about 500 men led the way with red gowns covering their best suits, then followed by 5 or 6 different bands all taking turns playing. i have to say that the music sounded a lot like the kind of music i used to hear at octoberfest at busch gardens and the beer was flowing freer than an english stag party!   catholics suuuure like thier drink with thier devotion!   but anyhoo, after the bands all passed, the bishop (totally cool, never seen a live bishop before, or a dead one come to think of it) slowly walked leading the way of all the priests and other high ranking members of the church.   he was very old and i can´t imagine how he walked all that way in the hot sun without passing out. that in itself was a small miracle. then came the bearers that held this massive statue aloft. the casing was enshrouded with flowers and smoky with incense and everyone watched in awe as he passed. it was really a lovely sight, but tiring and me and moo tucked in for a bit of a rest before the nightime festivities.
along the way i saw a couple of guys setting up a shot with a camera on a tripod. as i pass one of them starts speaking to me in portuguese and when i say i don´t speak the language, he pipes up in english that he´s from brasil covering the festivities and would i mind giving my views of the day on camera. how come i always find a film crew? in samoa, in korea, everywhere it seems they find me. my mom said that it used to be the same way with drummers and its very true! i told him that there was no way in hell i was getting in front of a camera!   i become insta-retard and brasil does not need to be subjected to that. very interesting none-the-less...
at night the plaza was lit to the hilt with a million bulbs forming crosses and patterns and lighting up the night like the vegas strip. people milling about, dressed in thier nice dresses and scarfing down beer and cigarettes. maybe i should convert, seems like quite the party being catholic!
a few days ago in madiera we went on a whale and dolphin watching excursion. needless to say we saw none of either but it was a lovely boat trip along the coast anyway. at the bar on the boat there was a sign saying in many different languages "thank you" with the flag next to it, norwegian, british, swedish, german, etc. my mom says, "i can´t belive that they don´t have the american flag on there! that´s horrible". i look and see the british flag with "thank you" next to it. i look at her and say, "there´s a reason they call it english, you know." she laughs heartily and tries to subtly remove my hand from the pringles jar thinking i won´t notice in my merriment. i play along only to remove my hand and let her dig into the very empty jar. HA!   madiera was lovely and there was quite a bit to do there. we rode the cable car straight up the hill to the town of monte and took the obligitory wicker toboggan down for a kilometer. that was dead fun! 2 guys push the 2 seater toboggan down a very steep public street as taxis and other cars whiz by. they take corners like andretti and come close to stone walls only to veer quickly from them. the whole experience was really fun and moo about pissed her pants as we rounded curves. i´ll try to post the video on facebook when i get back!
today we head to terciera which is another island in the azores. we take the ferry over then fly back to come home in 3 days. the food is less than spectacular here and when i get home i´m gonna eat all the spicy food i can shove down my gullet!!!
love,
tin tin

Tin Tin and the Mystery of Manual Transmission

2009-05-13T16:19:00.000-07:00

when we stopped there was a really pungent burning smell. like someone had, only moments earlier, laid a freeway beneath our feet. me and moo look at each other, look around the car for flames or melted material. upon getting back in the car we see that the emergency brake was up. so THAT´S what that light meant!

i have decided to leap into the void and ask my mother to travel with me for 2 weeks in the azores. for those who ask, «where the hell is that?» i say, it´s in the atlantic ocean 900 miles from philadelphia and about 500 from portugal (or something like that). it´s portuguese but most people here speak english and everyone has a brother or sister in new england or oakland, ca. traveling with moo is actually quite fun. i´m saying this because i know she will be reading this! but it actually is. she tries to speak the language, will walk as long as she can, and can drive a stick shift. well, kind of...

right now we are on faial staying in a private home of a woman who speaks only portuguese and french. my french is as rusty as a medieval sword buried for millenia and then some. that is to say, i barely speak it. but i make myself understood by a combination of body movements and poorly pronounced french and she is patient so it all works out! me and moo decide to walk around the very small main town and rent a car. now, we rented a car on são miguel when we first got to the azores but this island is a lot more hilly. moo hasn´t driven a stick in nigh on 40 years so this will be quite the test of memory (of which is sadly lacking on all other accounts). we get into the car, i am the navigator (compass tattoo seems not to work when i need it to), and we take off up some very steep winding roads into the countryside to see the crater of a volcano. now, these islands are all volcanic so there´s a crater on every island to see! it´s super cool and the islands are surprisingly verdant.

back to the roads... as we slowly climb to the top of a viewpoint, we pull over and that´s when the smell hits us. we have been driving for about 20 minutes uphill with the handbrake on. we have not bought the insurance because we have faith in god that we will not need it. actually we are too cheap to buy it because it´s super pricy and everyone knows what a cheap bitch i am. there is a hill pointed down in front of us and it´s a good a time as any to see if we have utterly destroyed the brakes. apparently we haven´t and we open the windows and put wild mint in the car to get rid of the smell and coast into the unknown towards the volcano.

moo isn´t too good with downshifting or backing out on a hill. we have many close calls with other drivers but we don´t hit anyone. i did have to get out of the car at one point and ask someone if they would back the car out for us because we were too stuck to even attempt a reverse. anyhoo, we reach the caldeira (crater) and it´s miraculously clear and gorgeous so we can see even the birds on the little pools of water that has formed in the still active volcano. most of the volcanos are still active here and in 1957 there was a major eruption that evacuated all on the island and that is how a lot of azoreans ended up in america.

são miguel was lovely and we are going back there near the end of the trip to participate in a catholic festival that is the biggest of the year. i think it´s the ascention but i´m not sure. lots of nighttime processions and moo is very happy because she gets to drink all the blackberry liquer she bought. sounds like maneschevitz but it´s actually home brewed and suuuper yummy! today we head to madeira which is a portuguese island closer to africa than portugal. it´s another tick on my list so i don´t want to miss it even though the azores are amazing, untouched and untouristed. madiera is supposed to be pretty touristy but it should be an interesting change from here. whatever, it´s all traveling and fun to me and moo! we are having a ball and getting along famously. i may just take her someplace else if she keeps behaving!! love to you all and please pray to the manual trasmission gods that we continue our mediocre luck! good luck would be amazing but mediocre i can live with too!

much love,

tin tin

Tin Tin Prays to the Ferry God

2009-02-01T16:14:00.000-08:00

when i last left you i was fed up and needed respite from the barrage of absurdity that is india. i definitely found it in theandaman islands. but it took me to another level of absurdity in order to actually get there.
from mamallapuram i got an early assed taxi ride to the chennai airport and hopped aboard a flight to paradise. as i looked out the window the water was clear turquoise with small islands ringed with white sand. ahhhh! when i arrived in port blair there was a separate immigration and a whole lotta forms to fill out all in triplicate. indians have a form fetish and there needs to be a rehab for it cuz i think, like alcohol and drugs, it MUST destroy families and it's just not right. once i clear immigration and agree to sign over my first born, i hustle myself out of the airport and fling myself into the mob of "madam! madam! taxi! rickshaw! MAAAADAAAAM!". throwing myself at the mercy of the first driver i see, he takes me to a taxi and when i ask how much to the ferry he says "150 rupees" . i flip and am like, "aaaaaw, hell no!". he takes it down to 100 and as i am already halfway in the car i agree and we take off. as we pick up speed he says, "150". i grab the door handle and open the door while we're still moving and he yells "ok, 100!" . come to find out it should have been only 40 becouse it's 2 kilometers. bastard. then he keeps saying, "tip madam, tip sister". i hop out and ignore his persistence and lug my over filled backpack to the ferry station. this ferry will take me from port blair to Havelock Island which is where i'm headed. luckily i see a ladies line and i stand there looking like i have done this at least a million times before. i obviously don't succeed because the line nazi says i need to get the permit to get a ticket. and the "line" is the screaming pulsating mob to my right. shit. she looks after my gear while i fight a crowd of about 50 men, squeeze my way to the front and then wonder what it is i'm supposed to be doing now. no one is behind the counter but people are yelling and shoving. all of a sudden a woman comes out and starts screaming at a man in the crowd, the crowd surges, she goes away. a man comes out with the countenance of a king and with him he carries a small sheaf of papers. people start going batshit, the shoving is incredible. it took me back to 1984 at the duran duran "7 and the ragged tiger" concert (remember kissy??) but i press on because this flimsy paper is the ticket to my ticket outta there! he is very selective about who he gives them to. he doesn't even look at me. i yell and stretch my hands as far as i can, have a pleading look in my eyes, and all the while am wet to the core with my own sweat (and i'm sure others). i can't be a pretty sight. still he doesn't look at me. the papers dissapear and i am left empty handed. will there be more? is that it? why is this so freakin difficult? and have i lost at least 3 pounds in water weight from this ordeal? please god, let it be so! eventually another woman comes out with another sheaf and this time i'm prepared. knowing the indian love of "baksheesh" or tipping i tuck a 100 rupee note in my palm and discreetly wave it towards the woman. she looks at me like i have lost my mind. oh god, i just tried to bribe a public official! luckily she gave me the paper anyway and didn't take the bribe, shaking her head rightously. 100 is a bit of cash so i was suprised she didn't palm it, but whatevs, i got my ticket to my ticket and i stand back in line with the line nazi. she is mid yell with a lady who is trying to cut the cue. head wobbling and fire in her eyes i cannot tell what she is saying but is sounds like a curse upon the line cutters family. wow. as i wait even more sweat accumulates on my flesh, my skin and shirt have merged into one stinking form. after shoving and pushing and elbows to the rib i finally get my ticket and hop on the ferry. it is all so worth it when i see havelock approaching. picturesque palm fringed sands. ahhhh. i met some new friends on the ferry and we all head off in search of our hotels and meet up that evening at 7 for cocktails. havelock is bliss and i meet so many great people. i have a new soulmate named layla who is from canada. we have an awesome time together with her sister and the friends from the ferry. next day is snorkle time and we see some great fish and i work diligently on my tan.
this place was heaven on earth, really. the stars in the sky came out to play at night and it was silent with the exception of quarreling dogs. the last day i rented a scooter and expored all the roads on the island. not many but they took me thru a little jungle in the middle of the island and popped me out on the other side on a fabulous beach. i was not happy to leave but after 4 nights of bliss i had to and now i'm in chennai sucking in the smog and watching my tan fade with every passing moment. i leave tomorrow to start my arduous jouney home. pix will be up in a week and you can all get violently jealous while i pine for better days...
love to you all!
tin tin

Tin Tin the Emotional Wreck

2009-01-26T16:07:00.000-08:00

you can stop sniggering now, mother...
love hate love hate love hate all in the same blink of an eye.
i woke up this morning early to catch the bus to mamallapuram and hop in a rickshaw to deliver me to the bus station. when the driver quotes his price it is twice what i paid before. i guffaw and he tries to justify. bullshit. i'm so tired of being charge double i can hardly breathe. i don't mind being charged a bit more, i'm a tourist, i have more money, i get it. but this consistent overcharging and then how they brag about how good a deal i'm getting is getting really annoying. i'm staring to get angry and it's not pretty.
as i clamber onto the bus and sit in my "Lady's" seat (the ones in the front are for ladies traveling alone), i fume about the last transaction. fucker didn't even have change for the 100 i gave him and he smacked his gum while watching my impotent rage build. the bus took off in a cloud of petrol and loud honking and overly loud bollywood tunes. the women in the other lady seats smile sweetly at me. my gloom starts to lift. as we barrel out of pondicherry, the countryside surrounds the bus and ox carts with oxen horns painted red and gold are passed in a chorus of our own kind of horn. the loud kind.
things are looking up...
arriving in the small town i hop in another rickshaw and find a hotel. they guy driving it is really friendly and i book a tour with him for later on. mamallapuram is a town famous for rock carving and for it's ancient stone temples that are ornately carved with images of reclining vishnus and krishna romping with his gopis (he is well beloved because krishna is a prankster who banged a thousand gopis-milkmaids). god i love this country so much i actually tear up.
so you see, the sleeve plucking by old women and small children ("madam, money please"), the joy in a child's eyes when you give them a pen (of all things), the smell of shit, the smell of incense, the glorious shopping, the infinite haggling, the "just looking madam, it's free" when they get super pissy when you buy nothing. land of contrasts, land of extremes in one breath your opinion can change. i love it, i hate it, i want to leave but then i want to stay forever.
but alas, tomorrow i will go to the andaman islands to get away from the hubbub and exhaust fumes for my head is exhausted and needs to be cleared. this island idyll should be just what the doctor (ayurvedic, no less) ordered.
looking forward to sushi,i dream of it but i will definitely miss my daily breakfast of idli and masala dosas...
love to you,
tin tin

Tin Tin Kisses an Elephant

2009-01-20T16:01:00.000-08:00

or am i supposed to kiss a frog? didn't i kiss him last week??? oh well...
i'm in cochin now which is a lovely old town with a lot of history. a friend that i met on the bus from mysore and i have been staying at a wonderful guest house with our new parents. they own the joint and it's the best place i have stayed in india so far. we're trying to get them to adopt us but they don't seem to be too keen.
this morning we awoke at the crack-a-lack of dawn to cram our butts into a minivan so we could see a couple of elephants being washed. i really wonder who thought, "hey, let's get tourists to pay to watch an elephant being bathed in the river". but it was really beautiful by the river and the weather was cool so it was a good deal to us. as the big elephant lumbered down the path she plodded into the water leaving prodigious piles of poo behind her. she leisurely laid her body into the water as us honkeys snapped away with our cameras. almost posing as she lifted her trunk up and rolled onto her back, her mahout got to work scrubbing her with a coconut husk and trimming her cuticles. sooo not kidding about the cuticles, they take a knife and trim around her nails. don't know why but it looked painful. she was chill about it so i guess it wasn't so bad. as she was getting her mani/pedi a baby came sauntering down and made his presence known by tooting his horn. mind blowing how cute these animals are and how gentle! after all the spa treatments (2 hours later) they came out of the water to have their photo shoots with all the tourists. most gingerly made their way up to the creatures, cameras at the ready in thier friends hand so they can snap and dash back to safety. well, you know me... i head to the big mamma and stroke her trunk, sctatch her by her snout, and plant lots of kisses on her big head. she was eyeing me, checking me out but i think she saw that i was gentle and only wanted to shower her in love and she tolerated me and turned her head towards me. it was great, the way they appraise you with such intelligence. i have seen them charge and go all aggro in videos but i can't imagine such a kind beast doing that. somebody musta really pissed 'em off!   anyhoo, after a lot of lovin' they head off into the woods again.
before cochin i went to ooty and ate too much of thier famous chocolates. there's not too much chocolate in this country and it's really taken a toll on my state of mind. i did my best to stock up there! ooty was chilly (being a hill station) but quaint and when we left we took the famed miniature train out of there. it goes by gorgous countryside, rice paddys, and waterfalls. the train is crammed to the gills with locals and tourists and takes a whopping 3 1/2 hours to go a measly 28 kilometers. painful it was but i was in good company so we made the best of it.
my ankle is healing well but slowly and within another week i'll be as good as new. sending everyone lots of love!!!
tin tin

Tin Tin's Luck Runs Out (Or Mysore Ankle)

2009-01-13T15:56:00.000-08:00

having reached the age of 37 without ever having had a broken bone or sprained anything, the inevitable has happened. the day after my grueling 17 hour bus ride from goa i awake early to greet the day in mysore. mysore proves an apt name for what is about to befall me. as i am making my way to the marketplace (and i SWEAR i was only gonna look, not BUY anything!) a wee street urchin latches on to me and asks for rupees. knowing that if i do this a flood of children will pour from the crevices of the buildings and ask for some too, i plead poverty and continue to walk. he follows with his big brown eyes and dirty little hands, he must be about 3 or 4 years old. i feel like shit just walking away but i know from experience that the money very rarely goes to food for the kid. it sometimes goes to parents with a drinking problem or for other nefarious needs. so i never give money no matter what. so still feeling like the poo that i see in the middle of the road i reach in my bag for a pen. as i give the kid the pen, i turn back to focus on walking and i miss the curb and pothole in front of me and violently twist my ankle. i heard a "pop" when this happened and i got a gash on the side of my foot. trying to regain my composure quickly i walk a bit then realize that the gash in my foot could very easily get infected (what with the poo and everything) and my ankle is feeling no better with every step. i get into an autorickshaw (loooove those things!) and hot foot it back to my hotel. i treat the wound and hope for the best. the best doesn't come and i find the doctor on gandhi square who says i have a fracture, he spins me onto my side and loads a needle with god knows what. i say " jesus christ!" he says, "very good, pray!". he doesn't let me see the needle and so i start my "om shri maha ganapati namaha" mantra, he is impressed, i'm about to lose it and then it's over. he tells me to go to the hospital and get an xray. i hail another rickshaw and go. so many forms, confusing protocol, and stairs!! not an elevator in sight! after the xray which is taken in a room that looks like a clean-ish soviet horror film set, i gimpily lurch to the emergency area. not too bad in there, definitely could have been worse and a doctor sees me quickly. no fracture, just sprain. 2 more shots, a bandage job, drugs, and $12 later i am released. now i am thanking my lucky stars this happened in india! in america this would have been a logistical nightmare! a fortune in fees and lots of presciptions! i have been resting for 3 days now and my ankle is sooo much better. i have been massaging it with sandalwood and almond oils and it's really been working. i hobbled around mysore palace today and was wowed by the architecture and splendor of it. in a few days i'll be able to go to another town but i don't want to press my luck. things could have been infinitely worse and i'm sooo fortunate that things have gone as well as they have. the gods are with me!
lots of love to ya!
tin tin

Tin Tin and the Slow Train to Goa

2009-01-08T15:48:00.000-08:00

booking the ticket was easy. getting on, not so much...
as i was trying to find my train car, the one with the faded "2 A/C" painted on the side, the train started moving. how could this be? people were still boarding! nevertheless, slowly, slowly gathering speed i jumped on and clung to the bars outside and shoved my way in. i show my ticket to the ticket collector and he informs me that 2 A/C is fully booked despite my reserved seat and reciept that i am showing him. he says, "go to another car" pointing to 3 A/C. now, 2 A/C refers to the number of beds on a compartment wall (3 means a total of 6 beds stacked in a small space) and A/C is, well air conditioned. i fend for myself in 3 A/C which turns out to be a very good thing.
i sqeeze myself onto a bench and after a couple of hours an adjacent bench opens up and i snag it. the hot sun, endless rice paddies and dusty villages lull me into a vegetative state and i doze for a while waking up to chaiwallahs (boys who sell tea on the train) and a parade of snacks tempting me to eat what the guide books call "forbidden food". i figure i have about 4 hours left on the train so if i get food poisoning i will at least have made it to my hotel before the effects are apparent. one must calculate these things in order not to be caught out! the idlis with spicy coconut chutney! the pakoras with coconutmint chutney! heaven! and i thank my stars for bringing my own cutlery because no matter how many wet wipes i use, my hands still maintain a steady veneer of soot.
across from me a man and who i take to be his wife are waving and smiling at me. people are so kind here, always smiling. suddenly a man with a hand drum, his wife and thier child (about 2 years old) sit directly across from me and dive headfirst into song. he is an able player and his voice is lovely. when his wife pipes in she beams at me and takes over the melody while the child plays on the bars of the train just like they are monkey bars and no one seems to notice or care. what a great childhood where one's actions are not so monitored! while they played the wife of the man across from me sat down and we moved in time with the music. after a few songs the car gave them rupees and they moved onto the next. the wife moved back to her spot but her husband came to sit next to me. he gestured wildly and didn't speak. his wife who i assume spoke no english motioned to me that he was a deaf mute. we ended up having a great conversation and going thru my photos on my camera of other places in the world and pix of my parents. he was eloquent with his gestures and quite easy to understand. after a while a youngish man sat down near us and snatched my guidebook. he was leafing thru it and obviously looking for a way to speak to me. my friend had fallen silent in his gesturing and i felt like the intruder was not someone i should be speaking to. nevertheless, he started talking to me and me being nice (or just a dumb bitch) i talked to him albeit unencouragingly. this he took as proof of my adoration of him and did not want to leave me alone. thankfully he went to buy a soda and there was much eye rolling and shaking of fists among my new friends until the intruder returned. i was more aloof this time having proof of my friends dislike him as well. my friend the deaf mute would not leave my side as he knew that once he left the intruder would move to his place beside me. sure enough, when
my friends got up to leave the train, he swooped. my friends parting shot was him flexing his arm muscles showing me to be strong and not take his shit. this gave me the strength to basically tell the intruder to fuck off and after a while he did. my lesson is that, here, women cannot be kind and let them down so the man can save face. not like europe or america. you have to crush thier ego in one fell swoop becasue any smiles are seen as encouragement. it has made me realize how very strong women are here.
having arrived in goa, i have been baking in the sun, frolicking in the sea and eating everything in sight. i'm staying in colva and it's a lovely beach with not too many foreign tourists. mostly indian tourists and not too visible on the gringo trail which is perfect for me. yesterday i rented a moped with a new friend and we drove all around the beach sides and ate in a roadside stall. the trick really was navigating my way around the cows. they gather in groups in the middle of the road and are not partial to leaving thier spot. so i weave my way around them, off the paved road, thru the middle of the herd, anything to get thru them! it's paradise here though, palm trees, blue water, and sand that is so fine it feels like you're walking on cocaine. at least it is what i would imagine walking on cocaine to feel like! and it crunches like snow! i don't want to leave but today i must get a move on. i take the night bus to mangalore and then on to mysore. i wasn't going to mysore at all but everyone i have met loves it so i too, will go.
i send you all lots of love!
tin tin

Tin Tin, Happy in Hampi

2009-01-04T15:42:00.000-08:00

the adage about india being a land of contrasts is an apt one. richness of tradition contrasting with unbelievable poverty. kindness to strangers and neglect of elders. multi-hued embroidered saris and the constant brown haze that permeates the country. cleanliness of the temples and the heaps upon heaps of trash that shows up the the most unexpected places.
i cannot reconcile any of it, it's confusing but unarguably lovely. the children are amazing, very kind, funny, and always wanting to talk to me. yesterday i met a little girl named Leela. i was sitting on the ghats by the river just watching people clean thier clothes, thier bodies and lila comes beside me and says, "hello! which country you from?" i tell her and she asks me for a "school pen". luckily a friend from the ashram gave me about 100 of them because they were at the end of thier trip and had no need for them anymore. i gave her one and then she asked me for a chocolate. i laughingly said, "i have no chocolate but i love it! do you have some? can you give me some chocolate?" after that we were inseperable. we walked along the river's edge and talked and took pictures. i asked her how she spoke english so well? did she learn it in school? she said, "i don't go to school, i work". leela is 8 years old. we climbed onto the roof of an ancient stone structure and watched the day pass, dipped our feet in the cool river and said how we didn't really like boys, they had swarmed around us by then, and so we ran off leaving the boys confused. leela is awesome and i hope to give her another hug today and gossip some more!
today i crossed the river and took a rickshaw around to some of the other temples. my drivers name was ganesh (god of the remover of all obstacles) but he really didn't live up to his namesake. he kept asking me how old i was and when i finally told him thinking he would shut up, he said how he had sooo many girlfriends my age. the kid said he was 20 but i think he was really 16. he kept trying to get me to learn how to drive his rickshaw. which i'm sure would consist of me sitting close beside him and putting his arm around me. i politely and repeatedly declined. but he did drive me to the durga temple where i met an older woman in a stunning royal purple and gold silk sari who took me under her wing. i met her family and we all took pictures. why people are so keen to have thier picture taken with a white girl i don't know. maybe it's our fascination with taking thier picture and it's come full circle. she took me into the tiny inner room of the temple (no more then 4 of us fit in there) to where the priest was performing his rituals for us. she showed me how to take the smoke from the fire and touch my eyes with it and to drink the sweet blessed water poured into my cupped hand. durga please don't make my tummy upset because of that!
at the next stop on the rickshaw tour i saw the ancient queen's palace where i was met by a couple of small children abviously in dire need of a meal. it kills me because tourists aren't supposed to give money to children as that will only teach them to beg in thier future. i didn't give money but i did give a couple of pens. at least those can be used for aid in learning. it's hard though. how do you refuse? if you don't, a hundred more will come in the wake of that one. i just have to remember that...
hampi is a gorgeous place. loads of ancient architecture, stone palaces, elaborate elephant stables, temples abound and the monuments reach the horizon. but my favorite thing remains the people. i feel at home here and it's a welcome surprise.
love,
tin tin

Tin Tin Runs With the Hindus

2009-01-01T15:36:00.000-08:00

first off, let me say that the cow thing -about how they are everywhere- its really true. when i first got to india i hopped in a car to take me to the ashram (more on that in a mo). as we were making time down the freeway (or it's equivalent) suddenly the driver swerves into the other lane. i look to see the cause and a cow was trotting along in the fast lane! he actually seemed to be making good time. for a cow anyway.
i stayed in the ashram of sri narayani who is a living saint. my friends were getting married there so i decided to tag along since i had planned to be here anyway (not the ashram, but india). the place was gorgeous and there was a hindu temple on the grounds that was entirely covered in gold. stunning doesn't even describe it. however, i didn't really get to see too much, just fleeting glimpses...this is where the running comes in.
as a person staying at the ashram i had special privledges. one was being able to go into the temple before opening hours so i could fully take in the beauty of the structure without the massive crowds that are there every day. i thought the temple opened at 9 so i went at 8am. as i entered, a door opened and a swarm of people engulfed me. they start running at full speed. oh shit, it opens at 8! an old woman in a red sari runs up next to me and smiles, takes my hand, and we dart off with the mob. we race between children and race with men with her sari trailing behind her before we have to slow down and catch our breaths. there is a star walk surrounding the temple in the shape of the star of david where people walk or run on the way to get blessings and pray to laxshmi (goddess of wealth and beauty), this is what we were racing in. it's perfectly natural to mow other people down in the race to laxshmi and it's all done with grins, laughs, and the incessant "what country you from?". my new friend showed me how to pay my respects to the goddess and how to recieve the blessing from the temple priest. as we walked and finished up the massive star walk other women started joining us and soon enuogh i was like a pied piper with a bunch of ladies in red saris holding my hands and laughing. i tell you, it's very good to be a woman traveling alone. women around the world always take care of each other.
the wedding was gorgeous and the saint married them. narayani is amaaazing, you can really feel that he is with god. his eyes never quite focus and his presence is luminous. he blessed the couple (who are his devotees) and we made our way to a massive feast. mmmm, i may come back 500 pounds. will you still love me?
so many things have happened in the few days that i have been here. i cannot begin to describe them all. from the press of humanity in the marketplace to the poverty to the man at the bus station who was ragged as hell looking who tried to take my ring off my finger when i shook his hand. i ended up yelling at him and giving him the evil eye much to the amusement of the many passengers at the station. but people have been unswervingly kind and i think that i will have a very good time here indeed.
love to you all!
tin tin

Tin Tin at Nadaam

2008-07-16T15:31:00.000-07:00

so i finally got to the north to see naadam. it wasn't that difficult a journey as i wimped out of a 26 hour bus ride and flew. after dealing with chicken buses in central america i was not keen on being in a mini van with 17 other people. i'm not joking either. one of my friends decided to do the journey and for the last 12 hours he was in a mini van with 24 other people. these puppies were made for 9 people and i cringe to think of the contortions he was in for those long hours. khovsol lake was stunning, there was lake and hills and no electricity to speak of. it was lovely! i stayed for about 6 days and explored a bit, got felled by another bout of food poisoning and chilled out waitiing for naadam to start. naadam is the mongolian olympics and the games consist of the 3 manly pursuits: archery, horse racing, and wrestling. the wrestling was the best part and 2 of the guys that i knew decided to compete. by compete i mean to get their asses whooped in record time by skinny mongolians. wrestling there is not like our wrestling, it's simply to get the other man on their backs by any means necessary. the boys in west hollywood would love this sport! they wear cute little nylon speedo-esque bottoms and a bolero type of jacket, needless to say i enjoyed watching...
but anyhoo, i'm home now and solidly tired. can't seem to form coherent sentences and am sooo happy to sit on an actual toilet. i had sushi immediately when i got back and am not working on a job. it's very interesting going back to work right when you get home from such a foreign adventure. driving a car is a bit hazardous and to see so many people again is crazy. not to mention the selection of food we have here. what struck me is the amount of waste and level of selfishness that occurs here. case in point: i was at the grocery store getting water from the vending machine and a homeless man was rifling through the trash outside of the store. there was a lock on the gate that was undone so he wandered in in search of recyclables to redeem for cash. the manager came up and locked the man into the area. started yelling that he shouldn't be in there, etc. finally the man (about 65 years old incidentally) was released and went on his way. now what did this accomplish? more waste for the planet? he eats less today? he has to walk further afield to get enough bottles and cans to possibly put shelter over his head tonight? i felt like decking the manager. i should have, but i just walked away. funny how quickly we re-adapt to our environment.

Tin Tin- Vive la Revolution!

2008-07-04T15:26:00.000-07:00

such a strange week it has been. when i got back from the gobi i rested for a couple of days and showered the sands from my various crevices. i ate most everything in sight. in the gobi, daily meals consisted of pasta, rice, and more pasta. so once i got back to ub all i wanted to do was eat every spicy dish i could find. i even craved pizza. so much for the 5 pounds lost...
a couple of mornings after i got back the news was on in the common room at the hostel and everyone was glued to it. there were translated whispers and it took a while for me to realize what was afoot. apparently the election wasn't going as planned and one official was locked in a voting station because it was speculated that that region was for the democratic party. and the ruling communist party (or people's party, same thing) was not about to have that. there was a large protest outside the party headquarters which is 2 blocks away from the hostel. the news was covering it and it looked quite peaceful. me and my friend maggie went down there at 5pm to see what was happening. we thought it might be over as it started around 9 that morning. we found people still shouting and starting to throw small rocks at the building. windows were shattered but the police did nothing but stand there with their riot gear on seemingly not knowing what to do.
there were police with video cameras filming all the faces in the crowd for use at a later date. soon red paint was thrown and the building looked like it was spattered in blood. it was very symbolic and somehow really lovely to watch. locals were very excited to talk with us. they wanted to know what we thought and they were eager to share their points of view. we learned a lot about the political differences between the city and the countryside. the countryside is anyplace outside of ub. there are no other cities and what towns there are, are dusty one camel towns that wouldn't even make it on a map anywhere else in the world. these people who live out there are very poor. your wealth is measured in sheep and goats. nearly everyone lives in a ger and leads a nomadic life. they have satellite dishes in front of their gers to pick up any signal they can on the aged, rabbit eared television. their motorcycles have carpet saddles much like
their camels and there are no toilets, just dug out holes in the dirt. the communist party pays these people for their votes. these people are also very conservative as most have never been to ub, it's too far and what's the point of going anyway? so they never see the corruption that lies just beyond the horizon. the people who live in ub are ferociously democratic. they want change and are willing to do anything for it. they see the holes in the roads, the unfinished buildings, the dirt and the weeds in the square. they want to stop the payoffs and the corruption and are sick at what their country has become. these are the people that rioted.
once the paint had run out, the huge rocks started being thrown at the police. they were ill prepared for this kind of thing. they stepped back as the mob stepped forward. they danced this way until the police were in the building and the mob was raging. now that the mob had control of the outside there was no barrier to stop their anger. alcohol was abundant by now, the liquor fueling their disgust and now fueling the flames that appeared in one of the windows. it took about an hour for the fire to really catch but once it did, it took up residence and devoured the headquarters.
during all this chaos, the police fired rubber bullets into the air and had a weak water cannon to fend off the crowd. the bullets worked at first. shots were fired and the mob took off in the opposite direction. people that didn't follow the flow tripped and fell but were soon picked up by others. we were all helping each other and the anger of the crowd never turned upon itself. it was terrifying at first to hear the bullets, see the mass shift directions, and then barrel towards me. i ran with them and made my way back when everyone else did. it felt like we were the ocean moving with the tide. moving forward then rushing back, slowly forward, and rushing back. the people were excited and hopeful about what this chaos would bring forth.
we went back to the hostel for a while then made our way back to the action when it got dark. at the square when we arrived people were running away from the burning building and yelling. come to find out, they were cheering the hooligans that stole a bulldozer and decorated it with democratic party flags. the headquarters was fully ablaze when we got there and we met more people willing to explain the subtleties and speculation of what was happening. no one was running away anymore. there were no police to control things, it became a (somewhat) peaceful demonstration. we left soon after and watched the news the next day.
all the tv stations except the state station were shut down. the official line was about the destruction of the party building, the looting of several convenience stores in the area, and the break in of the contemporary arts and music museum. five people died and two police officers were blinded. i didn't see any evidence of the museum and stores being looted. it probably happened in the night. we are under a national state of emergency here and cannot buy alcohol. the curfew is at 10pm to 8am. the markets are shut so no good shopping is to be had. that, my friends, is worse than no alcohol!! but luckily the other museums are open and everyone is safe. it's been an interesting week to say the least.  on monday i head to lake khovsgol to chill for a week and to see naadam.
hope you are all well and happy, like me, and much love to you all!
tin tin

i'm totally fine and safe!

2008-07-01T14:53:00.000-07:00

as you all may or may not know here in mongolia the shit has hit the fan. the presidential elections just happened and the communist party rigged the election. here in ulaan baatar a protest formed outside the communist party building and what was a peaceful protest soon turned a bit wonky. rocks were thrown and windows broke, paint follwed and soon after they set the building ablaze. i saw it all. i was right in the middle and there was chaos. runing forward and running away, bullets fired by the police into the air, and mass destruction of the building and the surrounding areas. the really cool thing is that all the locals that spoke english were asking what we thought of everything. we all shared our views and they were so happy to have westerners here to witness what was going on. the corrupt communist president has declared a state of emergency. the people are outraged and generally pissed off. it's a really great time to be here! i'll
write more as they happen! and watch bbc and cnn for more info...

Tin Tin the Camel Whisperer

2008-06-30T14:46:00.000-07:00

i saw the camels coming over the steppe. they were loping towards us taking thier sweet time. they were late. an hour and a half late and i was anxious to swing my leg over my camel's hump. i had been seeing camels for days. in the distance, close up, thru the windshield of the van while they were chillin' on the dirt road that is called a "highway" here. it was finally time, my dream of riding a camel was about to come true.
i have been obsessed with riding a camel for a few years now. the dream of riding in the desert on a camel's back watching the setting sun over the dunes was a frequent one. so when i decided to come to mongolia that was prominent on my list of things to experience. the night i came into ulaan baatar (ub), mongolia it was pissing down rain. i don't know how the driver could see the crater sized potholes in the road or the winking stoplights through the downpour. i would later realize how good that road actually was. when i arrived at my hostel ($5 a night thank you very much) the people were kind but the room reeked of cat pee, my bed was no more than rough planks with a thin lumpy pallet over it and the rain was seeping into my room by means i could not see. needless to say i slept like a baby. the next morning saw more rain but i went out to search for a tour to take me to the gobi anyway. i went to the illustrious "state department store" tograb an umbrella and cash and trudged into the rain again. i found a faboo tour company/hostel immediately and booked a tour for the gobi the following day. you can't get around in this country unless you have a driver and guide.just to set the record straight, gobi is the mongolian word for desert. so saying the gobi desert is not accurate. apparently there is no mongolian name for the gobi, it's just "Gobi".
the first day was just driving. most of the second day was driving. the moment we left ub the paved road stops. there are 3 paved roads in mongolia and we had just left one of them, never to see one again til we got back to ub. we drove about 600 kilometers (400 miles?) over a span of a day and a half. in any other country that drive would have taken us 6 hours. this is a whole other animal, this country, and i would learn this time and again over the next week. the first night we spent in a ger. a ger or yurt is a round portable house that is made of a frame of wood surrounded by fleece and other fabric. it looks a bit like a circus tent and smells like one too. once you are in it's quite cozy and once they light up the oven it's super toasty. oh, the oven is fueled by dung. that's right, dried poo from god knows what animal. mmmmmm. cozied up with my 4 new best freinds in our sleeping bags, fortified by russian vodka, and breathing in poo smoke, we sleep like babies til dawn. except for me because i have to pee all the time, but that is actually a bonus as the mongolian sky at night is a spectacular one. an unbroken blanket of stars from one end of the horizon to the other. the milky way swirled across the sky like a drunken artist painted it that way. if i wasn't stumbling in sheep shit looking for a decent place to squat i'm sure i would have enjoyed it more. but as it was, even surrounded by sheep shit, it was lovely.
the days were spent driving from one highlight to another that connected the near featureless desert. massive eagles and other birds were photgraphed and "ooooh!"-ed over, and we discussed the merits of memory loss, mongolian throat singing, and jay z. outhouses were shunned as they were always smellier than the open air, so we learned to pop a squat and go native stylee. in the evenings we played card games and guessing games and fantasized about food. our nights we alternated between ger and tent and always in the middle of nowhere.
but on the fifth day things became more interesting. we went to the singing sand dunes and went camel riding. once the tardy beasts showed up they were saddled with saddles of rug and we boarded them gingerly, careful not to piss one of them off. camels spit and we weren't taking any chances.
with my leg thrown over the back hump, we ambled off into the proverbial sunset. the steppe was green and undulating with a picturesque brook running through it. only about a kilometer away lay the dunes. 300 meter high dunes, as big as the hollywood hills, that seemed strange beside the grass. we made our way slowly to the sand, our camels farting the whole way. in my fantasies of camel riding i never thought of the constant farting and defacating of these animals. the smell was strong but it was hilarious and in our laughing we gupled foul air which made us laugh even more. we were so dirty anyway because showering is not high on the mongolians list of "things to do" that we didn't care what the hell happened anymore. camels have a loping gait that makes you slowly rock back and forth. they walk in a straight line, one behind the other. mine (of course) had a mind of her own and she would slowly make her way to the right or left to munch on a particuarly delicious morsel of grass or herbs. she could not be made to stop by me and so the guide (who didn't seem to care that i had fallen waaaaay behind the others) would have to double back, take her by the rope and pull her forward.
as we came upon the dunes we dismounted and i promptly fell down as my thighs were all messed up from riding for an hour on something as wide as a volkwagen beetle. the dunes were maaasive and as soon as i got feeling back in my legs i darted up the dunes to catch up with everyone. running on sand at a sharp uphill angle is brutal but it was so worth it. the view was spectacular at the top. nothing but mountains of sand in one direction, and the steppe in another. at the very top, the sand blew fiercely and formed a knife edge that fell sharply to the other side. i saw that it was stunning once the sand stopped blowing into my eyes. we made our way back down to the camels and set off back to the ger. my camel was still hungry and no amount of my prodding and cajoling was gonna get her back on track. but she was a good camel and very soft and pretty (as camels go).
that night one of the guys gets food poisoning and 2 days later i fall victim too. lets just say, i have no shame left. getting sick in the middle of nowhere is awkward and there is nowhere to hide. i'm happy that we just arrived back in ub where there are toilets and soap and running water. i am grateful for a matress and grateful for food that is not pasta with no sauce. i am also grateful that i lost about 5 pounds! screw diets, come to mongolia! the world's largest weight loss program...
love to you all!!
tin tin

Tin Tin and Kim Jung Il

2008-06-19T14:33:00.000-07:00

since last time i went i didn't properly see the dmz, i decided to go back and take the longer, more thorough tour. the first time i saw the third tunnel that North Korea dug into the south and the dora observation area where you can peer into north korea. this time the tour was through the jsa (joint security area) and camp bonifas. for those of you into such things, documentaries will show you these areas. they are the famous tan stone building on the north korea side and the blue long buildings on the south side. the soldiers form both sides face each other menacingly and the tension is palpable even on camera. THAT is where i went. it was haaaaard core. as me and my friend nicki were on the bus there we were joking about how it would be and how the guide kept repeating, "DON'T point" "NO cameras when the bus is moving" "NO gestures" and mysteriously "NO slipper type shoes". you cannot make gestures or point at north korean soldiers because you will have your photos taken by them and possibly used for propaganda purposes. ie: "america loves us, pointing is thier 'thumbs up' sign!" "germans looking for ways to defect into north korea!" etc. i think that's a little propaganda on the south korean side, but there you have it. it's all very sensitive here. "no cameras" means that the south korean governmentdoesn't want to taking photos of anything that is not designated to be photographed because of the sensitive nature of the area. copy that. and the "slipper" warning. well, they said that you are not allowed to wear slippers because if you are being shot at you will (obviously) need to run like hell and slip on shoes will not be the appropriate footwear for this. nice to know they are looking out for us...
we have our passports checked at 2 separate places beore we get to camp bonifas. bonifas is our first stop actually inside the dmz and we change busses to a military bus and have 2 armed soldiers board for the duration. one is korean and one is from america. the fence to get into the dmz is intense. massive razor wire fences separated by about 10 meters of sand and another big assed razor wire fence. the sand, of course, contained loads of mines so there is no chance of anyone surviving. inside one of the halls we watch a short film about the area and the dangers (again with the pointing and gestures) and are led back into the bus to go to the jsa.
we are filed into a stone and glass building in a line with solidiers surrounding us. up the stairs and thru the hall and out of the doors.  holy shiite muslims. everything i have seen on tv is right in front of me. the demarcation line, the tense soldiers facing each other, the regal tan building on the north side and the blue bunker style buildings on the south. every one of us is silent and just a little bit scared. we are led into the famous room that straddles the border where the north soliders are on one side and the south soldiers are on the other. there is a shiny table in the middle. we are once again instructed that by no means are we to touch the soldiers or go behind them or directly in front of them. the room is cleared of north soldiers and the ones that are left are freaking threatening as hell. nevertheless, we are allowed to take pictures with them! there is a door on the north side that leads outside. there is a soldier
standing about 4 feet in front of it. we can take pictures with him by standing near him. well, someone goes to take a photo next to him and oversteps a hair behind him and quick as lightening the soldier blocks the way. apparently this because the north is on the other side and they can take you and hold you captive. not sure how much I believe it but THEY sure as hell do! the whole room freezed and nervous giggles erupted soon after. when the solider moved, his boots rattled. i asked later and was told that the boots have ball bearings and springs in the soles so whether it is 5 or 50 soldiers marching, they sound like many many more. a really amazing effect for a film by the way. i've never seen or heard anything like it!
after posing with the guard and taking loads of shots we leave to go to the observation tower. thru my super lenses i can see into the north korean guard tower and can actually see soldiers checking us out thru binoculars. eerie feeling.
the whole day was like walking thru a national geographic channel special on the dmz. i mean, i saw this shit on tv never thinking i would ever see it in my lifetime. that was a scary and strange place. i'm happy to have had the chance to see it but i don't think i would ever want to go back. it was all just so creepy. like going to a haunted house except the ghosts have bullets.

love to you all!!
tin tin

Tin Tin and the Hunt for Style

2008-06-16T14:23:00.000-07:00

i have been to boutiques, malls, and markets. i've looked on main streets and side streets. and i cannot find it anywhere. alas, i am sorry to report that the people of korea have no style. it is a sad state of affairs when a metropolitan city in asia has no kitch or cool among it's denizens. i thought maybe i was just being blinded by the faux "chanel" blinged shirts. or hypnotized by the violently mismatched suits and shirts. but no, i fear there is a massive lack of taste here. women in thier 40's tend towards counterfeit couture and proclaim thier love of "chanel" and "gucci" with tops that would make the real designers scream like little girls then faint. the tops are usually matched with slacks, yes, slacks. i never saw the likes of these slacks anywhere else. ill fitting and somehow always too short. these are matched (or shall i say "matched") with sparkly shoes that are dazzling to the eye, kind of like of bombs raining down on you in the night sky. that is to say, they are so terrifying you cannot look away.
another phenomenon here is when boyfriends and girlfriends wear matching clothes. and i'm not talking about like how brad pitt's look seems to morph into whatever girl he's dating, that kind of thing is subtle and usually tasteful in it's own way. i'm talking flat out matchey matchey. like a cute pink polo with a cartoon character on it and jeans. they both have it on and usually the guy is carrying her purse too so it's all a bit unsettling. i think it's all chivalrous and whatever that he's carrying her bag but her PURSE?!? her little sparkly purse?!? i dunno, it hurts my soul a little bit. don't get me wrong, it was super cute in the very beginning but as time and couples go by it's a little freaky. and the men look quite feminine here anyway so it's all somewhat, well, twilight-zoney.  and what the hell is up with the men thinking a striped blazer, a (not matching) pair of stripey slacks (that word again), and a freakin' STRIPED SHIRT? and it's not even done in a cool london fleet street kind of way either! and don't even get me started on shiny suits straight outta 1991.   i think i'm a little bit bummed that the shopping here is so brutally bad. i had such high hopes...
anyhoo! i'm back in seoul and eating everything i can in preparation for mongolia.
on a side note, i was walking down the street the other day and what do i see but a c-stand? then lights, a monitor and a bunch of korean p.a.'s running around. i started talking to a guy who was the production manager and we were laughing about how you can never seem to get away from it! it was cool to see that they do things just like us, hurry up and wait, and a little bit confusing.
maybe i should stay in korea longer and help these people out. the resources are there (well, in japan and singapore) but no one seems to care. my faith in metropolitan asia as a style mecca is shaken to the core. but i guess, in contrast, thier poor sense of style makes me look that much hotter! so i can't really complain too much, huh...

tin tin

Tin Tin and the Pain of Seoraksan

2008-06-11T14:16:00.000-07:00

i climbed a mountain. a proper mountain with "mount" in it's name. Mount Seorak to be precise or Seoraksan in korean. it was a bitch, lemme tell you. it was high, steep, and treacherous. ok, maybe not the latter, but freakin' haaaard to climb. i went to seorak national park to hike on some trails and hang out in nature. there are loads of trails from baby trails to big daddy trails and the place was packed as it was memorial day weekend. as i walked toward the front gate i was struck by how disneyland the whole thing was. turnstiles, lines, and masses of people
heading toward the mountains. i have to say that koreans like to get thier hike on. these people are healthy and looove to do outdoor activities. there are numerous national parks here and all of them are awesome. there were kids running to the entrance and little old ladies hunched over thier canes at a precarious angle. everyone loves to hike here.   so i head on out to one of the smaller, easier trails. i live in l.a., what do you want?! it's lovely with
a stream gurgling alongside it and bridges and temples and heaps of people. i hike it easily and continue to climb, following the kids and some panting middle aged couples. i pass some food stalls and souvenier shops. speaking of food, there are boiled silkworm larvae everywhere. that and little whelks. it seems to be the snack of choice. it smells beyond foul. it's the kind of stink that sticks with you for a solid 100 meters after you have passed it. who eats this crap is unknown to me but there are whelk shells everywhere so apparently SOMEONE is eating it. ick.
anyhoo, i decide to press on and climb ever higher knowing i will probably turn around real quick like as everyone knows i'm not sporty spice. the view keeps getting better and the air crisper which is good because i am sopping with sweat. when i stop i feel the heat but when i climb, i'm hot but at least there is a breeze. higher and higher, old ladies are passing me and waving hello and giving me encouragement. there are stairs to the top so we aren't talking about everest here but the sheer magnitude of the stairs and the steepness of them is astounding. everytime i turn around to look at the view i get a little woozy because my old fear of cliffs comes back but i get over it quickly. when i am 3/4 of the way up i'm dying but now i have become obsessed with getting to the top. i HAVE to do this for me and for the good of the universe. that is what keeps me going at least. i climb steps that are built like a mayan temple on a grand scale, it requires being on all fours to ascend them. then the rocks and boulders to climb over are making me feel like an ant climbing a fat man. as i get to the top, the veiw is stunning. better than i ever could have imagined.  and there is a souvenier shop. ahhhh, koreans! there's also a bunch of people taking photos of each other with the korean flag, me included. it's so cool!  this is the second highest peak in the park and to do
it is something special, even for the locals. i stay up as long as i can then begin to make my way down. my very painful way down. i get a migrane for the first time in my life (it stays my companion for the next two days) and blisters in abundance. when i get to the bottom i see that i have hiked for 5 solid hours. what the hell was i thinking?
the next three days were a blur of rest and careful walks around town. now i am in gyeungju in the south and it's gorgeous here. i have been here for 3 days and will stay for 3 more. there's a load to do here and i'm staying in a traditional korean home with a courtyard. the family is kind and generous and the other travelers are great. i feel like it's my new home. at least for the moment...

love,
tin tin

Tin Tin in the Hermit Kingdom

2008-06-08T14:09:00.000-07:00

there is a length of white nylon rope in my room.  it's tucked up over the mirror in a little green tub.  i have heard of love motels but i really thought that this wasn't one of them. seemed like a family establishment. either this is bondage rope or koreans have a penchant for hanging themselves from 4th story windows.
i arrived in korea on tuesday night and checked myself into a sweet little hostel in seoul. the next morning at the butt crack o dawn i start to roam the city.  it's stunning, i feel at home. this country feels super safe to be in. i have seen one homeless person in 5 days. and i haven't seen any shanty towns or hovels either.  seoul is massive but easy to get around. i am going to leave seoul for the end of my trip because i am tired of big cities for right now.  after acclimating for one day i head to the famous dmz. that's the de-militarized zone for all you peeps who don't know. that's where north korea and south korea meet. and there's massive tension and it's all taken very seriously here. to pass into the dmz is crazy.  barbed wire everywhere, guards, lookout posts, tanks, serious shit. there are signs for land mines everywhere. at one point we go into a tunnel dug by the north to invade the south. a little claustrophobic but really cool. in there i meet my new friend nick (hi nick!). all these korean kids start saying "hello! hello!" to all the gringos and we all start saying it back. kids here love to break out thier english. or engrish. random kids will come up to you while you are walking or eating and say, "hello! how are you? where are you from?" sooo cute! i may come home with a korean in my bag...  when we go up to the dora lookout point, we get a view of north korea. it's really odd. there is a whole village, all pristine and perfect with blue roofs and white walls on the north side. it's just a facade.  there is no one there. the south korean side has a huge flag waving in the wind. the north has the biggest flag and flagpole in the world waving on thier side. like i said, it's all very strange. you can't take pictures of the north except for behind a yellow line which lies inconveniently far far from the viewing area. so you basically get nil. i can't wait to go to north korea!!!! maybe next trip... anyhoo, back to the love motel. i am in sokcho and it's all very difficult to get around. no one speaks english. about 98% of signs are only in korean.  imagine finding your way when you are illiterate and mute. really tough. BUT the food is good! that is, if you don't order boiled silkworm larvae (which is everywhere) or mistakenly order dog. yes dog. anyhoo, must go , people are waiting for the computer...
love,
tin tin

Tin Tin the Drug Runner

2008-04-03T13:59:00.000-07:00

no really, SERIOUSLY? did our engine REALLY just die? the waves were tossing our little speedboat around, pitching us closer to the jagged rocks and cliffs that ring tobago. it was really a lovely sight if you
blocked out the reality of the matter. bright blue waves striking massive black rocks that sprung from the ocean. the white spray jetting up. the cliffs specked with foliage, the birds cicling overhead.  birds...are they...? no, thank god, not buzzards.  the engine is struggling like a kid being woken in the morning to be off to school. reluctant, cranky,
petulant. closer we get. waves high, finally the engine kicks in and starts running. we manouver our way out of there seemingly just in time. and we're off! bucking against the oncoming waves and slapping back down with a splat. this is excedrin time. it's rough and everyone is holding on for dear life.  except lodi. lodi is our captain and a damn good fellow. we had dinner with him last night. a dark lanky man with long dreadlocks and a gold tooth in the
front. he's gentle and kind but looks like he could rip your skin off if he was so inclined. but right now if feels like we're running drugs. rememeber the photos back in the 80's of columbians running thier drug boats at high speeds, the front of the boat completely out of the water with only the engine barely touching the sea? that was us. he wasn't
trying to kill us, nor give us a thrill(ok, maybe just a little) but he was trying to get us out of the waves that kicked up and were making life very difficult.  even his assistant, duck, was having a rough go of it. afterwards he said that he hadn't seen the sea like that in a while. but we got in safe, i survived and was starving because of it.   leslie knows most people in the village of castara.  she is canadian and has been living there for the past 3 months. i met her on the beach the day i got there and she hooked me, wendy and seth up with the tour.  wendy and seth are staying in castara for 10 days and were my constant companions there. the evening before the tour we all had homemade dinner at leslie's house overlooking the bay. she made local stew and invited some of her local friends to sup with us. it was sooo good! the broth was coconut milk and had all local veggies in it. we ate, talked and they smoked weed.  it was perfect.   the next day was the snorkle tour. we hopped on the boat and sped with dolphins thru the waves and around the island. we must have found a mess of them as they were surrounding our boat, everywhere we turned there were more. when we got to the snork spot it was a bit choppy and stupid me was panicking a bit. but i got in and bit the bullet and it was lovely. a bit cloudy with visibility but i saw loads of parrotfish and some
big cobalt blue ones too. we had a bbq on the beach and i met a tobagnian who had performed in burbank!  such a small world! all in all, a lovey trip. i was sad to leave my new friends but everyone had been talking about how amazing grenada is so of course, tin tin must go. i arrived in grenada last night and so far it's gorgeous. the water is that shocking aquamarine that is so enticing. i'm getting terribly brown and lazy. a bit rotund as well because
the food is sooo good in the west indies! roti is my new best friend (sorry devon). roti is an indian bread but it's made differently here. they wrap veggies or meat in them like a burrito. it's spicy and deeeelicious!   signing off to go and get my snork on...
tin tin

The Adventures of Trini Tin Tin

2008-03-31T13:51:00.000-07:00

hello peasants. you poor lot. slaving away in some wretched building or on some dark, fake set. my heart goes out to you. meanwhile, bitches, i'm in trinidad and tobago!! i saw an empty spot on my calendar and checked my map, checked orbitz, and booked the next flight out. i chose t and t because of the culture, the beaches and the food. the food has an indian bent to it and it's sooo yumms! the beaches are not so hot in trinidad but delicious here in tobago.   i have a friend who is from trinidad and many years ago she said if i ever came out this way to give her a
holler. i called to get some info out of her and she said, "oh, my god, let me coll you right bock"  shortly thereafter she calls me and gives me her mom's number and instructions that i am to call mom the next day when i arrive. sweet. helen also had twin brothers that live here and she mentioned they might want to meet me too.   i arrive on thursday call them on friday morning and by friday afternoon we're having a gorgeous local lunch and having a great time. i'm told to get some rest "cos tonight we lime". ummm, ok. when they pick me up my attire dictates that we can't go to a club (clubs require fancy clothes, i have on the backpacker's special) so we head to a jazz bar and
have some drinks and delicious food. it's really a nice place and one of the brothers is crushing on the hostess. he throws her some lines ("hair, on. nails, on") and she proceeds to melt and give him her number. oh, and he mentions to me that he has a sex swing in his bedroom. it's tiger print. and he has a chocolate pen. this girl has got it coming. he's perry the more carefree, naughty twin. paul is the more conservative stable twin. both are handsome and play off the differences of the other. the night goes by quickly and i have to retire so i can rest up for
my tour the next day.   by the by, i seem to have caught quite the cough and have been hacking up my lungs each night. during the day isn't much better but i've been keeping halls losenges in business for the past few days. i hope it gets better but each night brings more misery. anyhoo, the tour the next day was interesting but mainly because my guide kept pointing out the obvious the whole time. "this road is very wavy" as we dip in and out of pavement seemingly inspired by laffy taffy. "do you see the water? that's the ocean" umm, yeah. i would imagine it would be seeing as we are surrounded by it. he was very sweet though and kept telling me to eat more oranges, which he then slammed to a stop in the middle of the road so he could buy some for me. very kind. anyhoo, i'm in tobago now
having found my idyllic beach. i'm in castara staying in a small hotel right on the beach. it's stunning, the water clear blue and the beach surrounded by rocky cliffs. today i snorkle! i have brought my snorkle gear. it takes up half my backpack so i'd better get a lot of use out of it. i may be off to grenada in a few days. it's supposed to be lovely too.
i send you all lots of love!
tin tin

Tin Tin Eats a Glacier

2008-01-19T13:36:00.000-08:00

aaaah, to sleep in my own bed. that was the kinky fantasy i had during my flight from santiago to miami. it involved me, a pillow (not one of those pillows for midgets on the plane), my cat lalomanu, and sushi dan. my plane from miami was one of those that should have put out to pasture 30 years ago but hid in a dark corner of a warehouse only to be found and mistakenly implemented into the fleet once again. some jackass probably thought retro planes were hot this year and decided to be the cool kid on the crew. the seats went back a whopping 2 inches and had the legroom to accomodate midget mac from i love new york season 2.  anyhoo, all this and more made me overwhelmingly happy to see my apartment once again.   but i'm getting ahead of myself...

when i last left you i was in chiloe. after that i took the bus to puerto montt and hopped on the navimag. the navimag is a ferry/cruise/cargo ship that plies the waters of northern patagonia. i had a small cabin with 3 roommates who spoke nary a word of english. in fact a staggering 3 people on board spoke english. we became fast friends and in the process i learned some new words and stammered in frustration at the rest. we had 3 stops where we would have
excursions. now this ship is more a ferry than anything else and we had cattle for company on deck so the excursions were of the lower rent variety. the cruise lasted 4 days. the food was not vile but tasted like hospital food. no flavoring, very bland, and lots of beef (wonder where they got it from). i was staaaarving. the first and last stop were in small port towns which were nice, quaint places but nothing to write home about. the reason i took this
ferry was because it went to laguna san rafael where there is a gigantic glacier! this is what i saw that i'm writing home about! this puppy was maaaasive! 90 meters high and 3 kilometers long it is wedged between 2 mountains and looks like it's a massive wall of water in motion, rushing at you, then suddenly frozen like you pressed pause in the video of life. i got in a small orange boat to get a closer look. as we sped towards the main attraction we dodged icebergs that were the size of suv's and motorhomes. it was beyond freezing and i was swaddled in layers of clothes, hats and scarves. but i was so excited to see this glacier that i was warm in my joy. as we neared the ice there were markings on the side of one of the mountains.  the first was 82 then next was 85. these were the marks of where the glacier ended in those years. 82 was about 1 mile from the end of the glacier now. i have actually seen first hand evidence of the impact of global warming. really scary when you see the number 82 then you just keep going, and going, and going, and then you reach the ice. on the top of the glacier the ice near the mountains are darker. this is because when the glacier formed it tore the rock from the mountain and it's still imbedded to this day.
as i got closer i heard distant thunder and out of the corner of my eye i saw a splash. it was calving!!! so i kept watching and scanning and i saw about 6 pieces break away from the wall in about 30 minutes. all preceeded by a rumble of thunder. it sounds spectacular!   as we stopped the boat the captain produced a bottle of whisky and fished out pieces of the glacier from the water below. these pieces of millenial ice went in our glasses as did a swig of whisky! ooooh, glacier is good! but i kept seeing all the birds around and thinking, "am i drinking millenial bird shit with my whisky?" no bother, it was good and things like that build up my immune system for future abuses. we made our way back to the ship and i crawled in my bed to warm by feet up, happy in the knowledge that i have seen my first glacier.   the ship made its way back to puerto montt and i flew out the next day for santiago and then home.   i'm happy to be back where i can eat sushi and wear flip flops.

now, if i can just figure out where to go next...

Tin Tin and You

2008-01-09T13:29:00.000-08:00

i wish you were here. i wish you could see what i see. there is beautiful church that anchors the main plaza. it looks like a country victorian style church, what someone would build if they were only given a written description of what they looked like.  you would see that it´s a faded yellow building with faded blue towers. looks quite average and dull until your eyes shift focus and you notice that the outside walls are not brick, wood, or stone. they are corrugated steel and the entire front is covered in small wooden shingles like the roof of a shack. it appears as if someone read the instructions wrong and put the roofing materials on the sides of the building (corrugated steel being the roofing of choice in many countries). it´s stunning, confusing and utterly gorgeous.
i wish you could smell the fish coming from the market by the cold salty sea. you would actually be able to smell the salt. and the cold. and lemme tell you, it´s bloody freezing. the warm smell of chicken from a cafe passes your nose, tempting you inside but the walking is good, the air brisk and it´s quarter past 9 in the evening and the sun shows no inclination of setting. it´s just hanging there enjoying the scenery. like me. like you if you were here.   i love the assault of the chill and the air lightly dusted with rain. i never quite know if it´s just letting up or it´s about to piss down. unpredictable is a vast understatement in this area. i´m in castro on the island of chiloé. second biggest island in all of south america, mind you, and seemingly with a mind all it´s own. it´s known for it´s quirkiness, the
look of nothing being quite right though you would have to look hard to figure out what EXACTLY is not quite right. and then it all starts looking normal once you have recognized some of the idiosyncrasies.  but it doesn´t lose it´s charm. to get here i have taken a bus from pucón to puerto montt. then from puerto montt another bus that drove onto a ferry the size of a dinghy to chiloé. over hill, over dale, sea to the right then left and boom. castro.  shanty town with frostbite.
today i booked the navimag ferry (proper ferry this time) from puerto montt to the laguna san rafael and back. a 4 day excursion to see fields of glaciers and wildlife. i literally got the last bed. someone canceled that day, in i walk and the bed is mine! my angels are looking out for me once again. life is better than it should be. it is greatly unfortunate that my plane leaves next thursday as i would have loved to go down to the tippy tip of chile to torres
del paine and cape horn but i´m just happy that i get to live this life and i will see those things when i take a cruise around Antarctica.   i sincerely wish that my friends could experience the things i do. i always say that travel changes everything and it really does. it changes your whole perspective of things. the way we live and the way we
should live. it gives me hope. it makes my heart feel like i´m hopelessly, relentlessly in love. i can´t remember what it feels like to love a man but i cannot believe that it would ever EVER feel this good.

love,
tin tin

Tin Tin in the Atacama Desert

2008-01-04T13:15:00.000-08:00

so the last time i left you it was almost new years and i had made a bunch of new friends. new years eve we all chilled at the hostel waiting for the bbq to start. the hostel put on a great bbq with loads of meat (next door to argentina = good meat) and pisco sour (national drink). i had gotten a bottle of faboo chilean wine ($2 y'all) and some sustenance for the next day at the market so i was fully prepped for the debaucheries ahead. we all commandeered a huge table in the courtyard and there was german rock pumping from the speakers. my german friend auntje was translating and let´s just say, i´m not a convert.  yet. after much meat and drinks we started out for
the beach around 11. that was where all the partying was to happen. there were masses of people heading to the beach and when we got there we staked our claim and got to drinking and chatting. along the way we had picked up a german guy and a swiss couple. we were a veritable international house of pancakes. or should i say ¡panqueques! unfortunately no pancakes were harmed during our fiesta. anyhoo, families crowded around, children kicking up sand but no one was venturing towards the crashing surf. smart folks, bloody freezing, the water is.
all of a sudden the firworks started. no countdown, no announcement, nada. so in the midst of the fireworks we counted down. loudly. as we turned toward the sea we saw that there were 2 other communities doing displays as well! everywhere we turned there was color and sparkle! the other displays were fancier but our lasted the longest. 25 minutes!  i just pictured the mayor of la serena stockpiling fireworks, bringing them in by the truckload, denying
schools milk all in his mad quest for fireworks. the money has to come from somewhere, right? and the machismo of latin men is legendary, our mayor wasn´t gonna let some half assed VILLAGE beat him! ¡let the natives starve, just let me have fireworks! after the display, some of us (read, me) were tired so it ended up an early night. the next day nothing was open so i sat in the back courtyard reading my book, waiting to catch my plane for iquique. the cry of
several birds worked it´s way into my hearing. they didn´t seem to fly away though. then it started to sound like kittens mewing. impossible, i hadn´t seen a cat since i came to chile. the sound became insistent and i followed it to the front of the hostel. holy shiite muslims! it was a box of kittens! they couldn´t have been more than a couple
of days old. thier eyes were still closed and the umbilical cord was still attached. i ran to them and held one tightly to keep it warm, they were freezing.  we fed them milk in a syringe and held them close.  tears start to fall from my eyes. for those of you who don´t know, on december 17 kissy (love of my life, cat of my dreams) passed away. i wiped my tears away and then spied a kitten that looked just like kissy. i grabbed it and started to cry quietly.
suddenly, i gave him to someone else and bolted for the bathroom. i sobbed violently for close to an hour. couldn´t get off the cold tile floor. when i did get up, i only collapsed again in a fit of sorrow. my friends were knocking trying to comfort me but it was no use. i eventually clawed my way out of my grief, kissed the kitten and made my way to the airport. grief is a bitch, i wish it on no one. after flying to iquique and grabbing a bus to san pedro de atacama, i arrived road weary emotionally drained. checked into a hostel and immediately started missing my pals.   the next day i took a tour of the 2 deserts here. one was white and looked like the moon, one was red and looked like mars. if you are even in need of a location like this, let me know. i have plenty of pix! we walked thru the impossibly dry and hot deserts and then watched the sunset from a massive sand dune. it was lovely.  today i did a whopping 12 hour tour of the tatio geysers, 2 small villages, a 12th century fort-like building, and saw a petroglyph. and toadie, i got ya something from the fort!!! i think you´ll like it!  the geysers were the best part. they are the highest altitude geysers in the world and the water just bubbles out smelling a bit like sulfur. it was an exhausting day and i´m filthy (but you knew that didn´t you?). tomorrow my friend auntje comes in and i leave on a bus that night. pucÃ³n is next on the agenda but don´t count your chickens. everything changes quickly when i´m on the road and who knows where i´ll end up!

loads of love,
tin tin

The Adventures of Tin Tin in Chile

2007-12-31T13:00:00.000-08:00

yes, my friends, i am off again! after christmas i decided to get the hell out of l.a. and go on a little adventure. i wanted to use my miles so i called american airlines with a list of 10 countries that i would like to go to. this consisted of ethiopia, madagascar, colombia, and other places far removed from my humble abode. chile was the only one available. i´ve always wanted to come here so this was as good a time as any. after flying for freaking
ever to get to santiago i hopped on a bus for another 7 hours of joy to get to la serena. oh, and my bag was delayed. thrills-a-minute. after arriving in la serena i found my hostel and collapsed. the next day, senses intact i met my new
friends: antje (german girl), david (canadian guy), sjord (dutch guy), and jeffrey and christine (french couple). ok, living in l.a. you can see stars. unfortunately the stars one sees have egos, demands, and "needs". i am not a fan of these kind of stars. i´m way more interested in the ones imbedded in the firmament above my wee little head. chile is famous for it´s observatories. one of the things you can do here is go to them and star gaze. so the first night that i was in possesion of my senses i booked a trip to the mamalluca observatory. we get there when there is still a bit of light in the sky and go into the building for a lecture. we´re told about the milky way, neblulas

(nebulae?) and magellan clouds (look ém up, they´re fascination) and what it means when stars flash red. then we go upstairs to the telescope. we see sirius and another star and then...a star cluster. o.m.g. i thought i was gonna die! (rina, that´s for you) you can´t even SEE it with your naked eye but thru a telescope, BAM! like fairy dust lightly

sprinkled, like a bit of salt when you knock it over at the table, like saliva after a vigorous sneeze!  just gorgeous!
then we walk outside and everyone gasps. stars are everywhere. masses of them, you can actually SEE the milky way! it flows before your eyes! and holy shiite muslims, THE MAGELLAN CLOUDS! right freakin THERE! huge and obvious! i can actually SEE another galaxy! two of them in fact! clear! seriously?  they´ve always been there? wow. at another telescope we see the nebula that is the center star of orion´s knife. and another star formation that looks like a massive hill of glitter whose sides have slid down and leave a glitter halo around it. we see mars too which is totally anticlimactic after the other things. it is all spectacular though, the night is clear and chilly and the sky is overwhelming. blur your eyes a bit and it all turns to flashes of sequins in a dark club.  the next day me and all my new bff´s (best friends forever, duh) go to damas island. to get there we take a fishing boat to a couple of outlying islands where the wildlife rules the land. while going there, pods of bottlenosed dolphins swam before us. when we got to the first island, the guide said, "look there!  a sea lion!" ummm, i saw nothing, just a rocky cliff. as i searched, i started to panic because i didn´t see them, my eyes refocused and they were right in front of me! wow! they´re huge and sooo cute! and they were all over the place! once i saw them i couldn´t stop seeing them. they snuggle together, they even fut thier arm around the one next to them!  there were little baby ones and alpha male ones. i got some great pix of them. so onward we went, there were humboldt penguins which are charcoal grey and
white and they, too blend effortlessly with the rocks surrounding them. we saw loads of birds and thier droppings all over the place. the clifftops are whitish with bird poo making them look ice capped. on the boat ride back we got soaked by sea spray and froze our asses off the whole way back.   tonight we are having a bbq at the hostel and then we´ll walk to the beach and drink chilean wine on the sand and watch the fireworks at midnight. a perfect beginning to the new year and a beautiful finish to the last. hope you all have a marvellous celebration
and that you create memories you can savor for the rest of your life...
love
tin tin

Tin Tin and the Perfect Storm

2007-05-13T18:49:00.000-07:00

i must have been really good in my past lives. i´m talking mother teresa-esque. i don´t know how i ended up so blessed in this life, i just can´t figure it out!
after going thru the canal, we picked up a new crew member named thomas (another frenchie). like many of his ilk, he reeked upon arrival. after one day he either ceased to smell or i started smelling more like him. i suspect the latter. as we cast off past the line of waiting cargo ships, the strains of that christopher cross song "sailing" permeated my brain and didn´t surrender it´s death grip til i disembarked 4 days later. shit, i think i just started it again. anyhoo, we set off towards the archipelago de las perlas (or the pearl islands for all you gringos).  the wind was nigh on nil during the day but come the setting of the sun, the sea rose and lightning flashed. it was my turn to cook dinner. the boys had caught a bonito (not so good) and a tuna with white flesh (really yummy) and fileted them on the back of the boat earlier so at least we had something fresh to eat. hmmm, how to prepare such a morsel. as the sea
was rising i decided to cut the skin off the fishes.  since in the supermarket, the fish have no skin, this seemed like a logical thing to do. soon my bikini was awash in bonito blood and i could barely wield the knife without fear of the handle slipping from my sweaty grasp. where is a trader joe´s when you need it? they should seriously consider expanding. night fell and lightning sparked the sky. waves started to make the boat roll in a most unpleasing way. i'm in the dark because i can´t figure out how to turn on the lights, so i strap a headlamp on and get to sauteeing.
how the hell i sauteed whilst being flung around the cabin in the dark, sweaty, bloody, and in a bikini i do not know. but i DO know that the fish turned out maaaaarvelous! the boys couldn´t come down to eat, the storm had kicked up and was tossing everything violently about. they valiantly kept the magellan afloat while i put the yummies in tupperware and went into my room and fell fast asleep. don´t fault me for not helping steer thru the storm, had i had the presence of mind to do that, i would have doubltlessly puked on the bow or been tossed off into oblivion.
sleep was the only thing that kept me from tossing my cookies (or fish, as it were)! after that night it was smooth sailing. the night sky when seen from a boat is astounding. no lights, no pollution. just the sound of the waves, the cool breeze, and the hum of insects from the nearby island. magical.   during the day chloe and i snorkled and chatted, cooked and cleaned and the boys went off and killed things. oh, did i mention that they are nudists? all of 'em! so the boys went off with thier willies out and spear guns in hand to go and kill us women folk some grub. why did life ever change from such perfection? anyhoo, we spent blissful days and evenings floating around the archipelago talking about life. thomas actually crassed the atlantic alone in a small boat! this man was a consummate sailor, an amazing teacher , and such a patient soul. he was the one that taught me what little i know about sailing.   after day 6 i needed desperately to have a freshwater shower. so i go off the boat at the last island before they sailed to galapagos and stayed at this magnificent resort where i ate everything in sight, slept in a bed that wasn´t supposed to move but did because i still had my sea legs on, and took 3 showers in one day. it was BLISS!!!!
now, i´m back in panama city and will be coming hom in a couple of days. if there´s any work going on, lemme know! i have to start saving for a boat... also, i just want to thank everyone that supports me emotionally, work-wise, and in every other way. i have the most blessed and magical life. and it is with you and your prayers that i am able to live this fantastic life. i really thank you. i love you all.  as i watched the boat sail into the sunset last night i realized that i am so fortunate. it´s just a lesson that all you have to do is let go, everything that you desire will come to you if you let it.
love,
tin tin

Tin Tin and Her Magical Life

2007-05-08T18:43:00.000-07:00

seriously. i mean, this is my life. my freakin LIFE!  how did i get so blessed? my fairy godmother, lois moore, just passed away and she obviously had something to do with this. because i mean, REALLY, this is my life!
ok, ok, ok. backstory: just before i left i was really hoping that one day i would be able to sail around on a sailboat. learn how to sail so that next time i was in a situation, you know in the south pacific or something, that i would be able to crew up on a boat and putter around the sapphire sea. problem is...i get seasick. like, i can be in a pool on a
float and get a little woozy. oh, and i´ve never been on a sailboat before. just a couple of minor probs on the way to being magellan.   cut to: on my second day here in panama city, i go see the miraflores locks. on the way back to my hostel i check my email and this guy strikes up a conversation with me. american dude from san fran
full of surfisms. like totally, whatever. he says, "dude, wanna sail to galapagos with me and a couple of others?" ok, maybe he didn´t say dude but it was emanating from his pores. "i have never sailed before but am totally willing to learn, let me be putty for you to mold", i say (or something like it). so next day both us us ended going to the san blas islands in the same jeep. small country! whee!
cut to: i´m in bocas del toro island chillin´, phone rings, "dude, come to panama city tomorrow, we´re going to colón to go to the boat". rock the fuck on.  plane was hopped on and i arrive ready to go. bus to colón, arrival at "yacht club", new homies met and i´m on the boat. that evening we set sail to the canal. holy shiite muslims is this happening? does one ALWAYS get what one sincerely desires? i bought "the secret" in boquete, obviously this book touches on this phenomenon. have yet to crack it. we sail for a while and get to the first lock. the sun has set but the lock is lit up brighter than vegas. we tie up port side (yup, i said it and i know what it means!) to a
massive posh catamaran. on the other side of that boat is another sailboat like ours. oh, we´re on a 45 foot beauty run on solar and wind power. we are all tied abreast and we mosey into the lock right behind a big cargo ship. ropes are thrown, orders barked, ropes tightened and slacked. lock doors close, i´m on the bow (i know what that means too!) looking out of my fantasy. water bubbles from below, we go up.  tighten the line, eeeek! coming dangerously close to the wall and have to push off with a pole. bubbles up very fast, much faster than it looked when i was in
the miraflores stands looking out and getting bored with the slow process of it all. up we go, lock doors open, we ease ahead into out next lock.  repeat process. we´re up even more now, and once more til we get to the level of lake gatun. we overnight in the lake and see crocs and hear holwler monkeys in the jungle right on the bank in front of us.
next day (today) we finish up and go thru pedro miguel and miraflores. i wave at the spectators and marvel that i had not a clue on that day what was in store for me. my god, life is funny. anyhoo, we exit all the locks and have just harboured pacific side. it´s choppy as hell and i have gotten waaaay woozy and have now realized that galapagos will have to wait until i am more seaworthy. but i´ll go to islas perlas which is about a 10 hour sail from panama city. i´ll learn some from that sail and will hopefully get used to the sea so that next time when my dreams decide that they´re gonna get answered, i´ll be more prepared. i mean, holy cow. this is my LIFE!
the wonderously grateful,
tin tin

Tin Tin and the Wild River

2007-05-04T18:40:00.000-07:00

I´m more like posh spice than sporty spice. i´ve got a measure of ginger spice thrown in as well, but sporty i am not. however this may be changing...
i went white water rafting for the second time in my life. you may remember that i did it in borneo on a class II river and had a great time. this time the river was a class II to class III and a half. and a 3 1/2 is kinda crazy! there were 2 italians, the guide, and me being the only chick. we had a briefing (i remembered a bit from borneo) and all of the commands were in spanish. unfortunately, i keep getting izquierda (left) mixed up with derecha (right) so i
just ended up following the italian guy in front of me. even though my mantra is "i´m izquierda, i=izquierda", no matter. i hear "derecha reverso!" and i go reverso. even if it was in english i would probably do the same. aaack. anyhoo, we hop in the water and paddle a bit to a little rapid. WHEEEEE!  the water is fresh and cool and a slight shock to my flesh. there are plenty of still bits so it´s not all rapids and it makes the rapids more fun when you get
to them! uh, oh. class III coming up... holy shitte muslims. that doesn´t look too good. it looks like the water just drops off after a couple of rocks.  BOOM! we hit a massive rock. water in my eyes, bikini bottom has no grip, bump after bump, bare feet losing grip, halfway over side of boat, blindly grab the rope that keeps me in the raft, and "forward!" he yells, oar in hand pushing thru the water and we go forward. holy shit that was fun!   we glide thru sheer canyons snaking on either side of the brown river. there´s walls of jungle on surrounding us and we see kingfishers and iguanas and herons. i keep sniffing for monkeys because they live here but my nose is stopped up, i seem to have caught a cold somewhere down the line. more rapids! somehow i find the strength to paddle forward even though i KNOW i´m gonna fall off the damned raft if i don´t watch out. and falling outta the raft is dangerous.  there´s massive rocks hidden in the brown water and fast flowing water that won´t give you up without a fight. a couple of times the guide has to grab my life jacket to keep me from going over. once, he had to get out of the raft to dislodge us from a rock in a rapid and was struggling to get back in the raft. i leaned over grabbed his jacket, yanked him in (with what strength i do not know), and kept paddling forward, barely missing the beat. even he was impressed!
halfway thru our 4 hour ride we stopped on a bank for lunch. we parked right next to a couple of waterfalls and i took a little "calgon take me away" shower under one. my god, this is the life! after lunch we float some more, paddle some more and fight some more. when we reach the end we amble across a rickety suspension "bridge" over the rapids and high tail it back to town.   i was exhausted but really felt like i had accomplished something. it showed me that i can paddle thru the worst crap blind yet somehow emerge from it all feeling more than a little victorious. take from that what you may. i´m taking away more than i thought i ever would from such a simple adventure.  i can´t wait to do it again!
love,
tin tin

The Adventures of Tin Tin in Panama

2007-05-01T18:33:00.000-07:00

yes friends, i´m off again! my wanderlust had me in its grips and would not let me go. i submitted and i don´t regret it!  panama has always sounded yummy to me. there´s jungles, beaches (carribean AND pacific), fabulous islands and interesting indigenous people.  so, off i go! after landing in panama city and getting a stinky nights sleep in my hostel, i went to casco viejo (old town) and wandered among beautiful restored colonial buildings and thier decrepit, dilapidated counterparts. balconies that are barely gripping the building, are holding families who peer over the edge
with nothing else to do but watch all the gringos pass by. after a small bout of shopping (well, duh, it´s in my blood) i pop to see the canal.  miraflores is the easiest one to see from panama city. the locks are massive and it´s so interesting to see these huge ships rise and fall with the water level. it´s takes for bloody ever for a ship to go thru one though!  quite dull when the initial thrill is over.   next day i decided to hit the beach and get a little culture while at it. off to kuna yala i go! kuna yala is an area that is reserved for the kuna indians and it´s on the carribean coast. they have about 400 islands and most of them are in pristine carribean water. the leftovers from that ¨most¨ are a little more, shall we say, rustic. guess where i stayed?   starting off from panama city, i hopped into a jeep that barely ran and we made the 3 1/2 hour overland journey thru rural area and serious jungle. we were barely making it up the steep dirt roads that cut thru wilderness and chopped down forest area. we plummetted down hills and forded a river. it was just stunning! there were 5 of us originally but our companion car broke down so we took thier bags and passengers and somehow squeezed 9 of us in the jeep.  one guy was still very drunk from the night before and
stank to high heaven, and one woman was about 60 was a crazy relentless hippie who kept on and on about
something called the rainbow bridge (some spiritual shit) and the wonders of pot. she was amusing for the first couple of hours...
out of the jeep and into a dugout canoe with my first meeting of the kuna women. sarong around the waist, highly emroidered style of top, red kerchief on head, beads all down thier forearms and from the knee down, and a gold hoop type thing in thier nose. really beautiful! and they have short hair like me! anyhoo, we hop in the boat and make out way to the island.  seeing the island from the water it looks like a bunch of sticks formed into huts all the way to the water and over it. very brown and dirty looking. but as we dock and enter the village (the small island is one village), there´s manicured walkways, small tended gardens, and primitive huts all over. there is no running water on the island or any electricity. there are no restaurants and only a small ¨store¨ that sells pepsi and beer. we will all have huts near the chiefs hut and there we will eat and go on boat excursions  everyday to a different island. this can all be yours for $25 a day! but there´s a catch...no running water means no showers, no flushing toilets. what´s a
princess to do??? the princess goes into the rickety wood hut built over the water, looks at the toilet which is a hole cut in a peice of wood that dangles above the water (NO privacy at all), and i have a strange and satisfying pee. for my shower there are big barrels of fresh river water which i dip my bucket in and splash it over my head. needless to say, the water is brownish and i never really felt clean, but it would have to do.   at night we drank and talked and avoided the spiders that nested above our heads in the dry leaf rooves.  one night rustling woke me up. it was loud and overhead and tireless. my roomie freaked out and hopped on my bed. i was like, ¨dude, it´s just a rat¨ but he was freaking. it was hilarious! there was a masive spider above my head and i tracked that fucker like gps. i did NOT want him taking a stroll across my chest at night! he stayed put for both nights and for that i was grateful!
the last night everyone got wasted (but me, boats and alcohol don´t mix). my new friend yaron had a birthday and his wife betty and i came up with a treasure hunt where he had to go to the craziest person in the viilage (rainbow bridge woman) and get a note, which led him the get a beer in the tienda, there was a note on the bottom, the note said to go to his fave place, so he went to the toilet where there was another note. this one said that he had to learn to sing the kuna birthday song and perform it in front of us! it was hilarious! then we danced under the moon with all the kids, got drunk, and bared our souls. it was a perfect introduction to what is rapidly becoming one of my favorite places in the world.

love,
tin tin

The Adventures of Tin Tin in Mexico

2007-02-12T18:28:00.000-08:00

We all know that the princess cannot bear being bored. She was bored. So very very Bored. So she (I) saw no reason why I shouldn´t be on a plane at that very moment. I checked my map and travel files, gathered my backpack together and hopped on a plane bound for Mexico City!
Mexico City is massive! It´s huge and intimidating so I found a hostel in the historic center and plopped myself down for a couple of days. Hostels are great because they basically have a built in network of friends. The moment I checked in I had met some cool guys and had an awesome roomie. Insta-friends!   Being famished (as usual) I hit the streets, found the marketplace (again, massive) and had some amazing street food for next to nothing. The market was neverending. Seriously, I wandered for at least 3 hours and didn´t find an end to it. Granted I was
leisurely shopping and eating my way thru it, but it took a while! There were clothes and food, cd´s and candy, yarn and every other freakin thing you can think of! The clothes are much better in S.E. Asia but they actually have my size here!
Anyhoo, the next day I went to Teotijatachucan, or something like that. These Aztec\Toltec whatever names are all like slurring when you´re drunk. It´s an ancient city with 2 pyramids. One of which is the 3rd largest in the world (who knew?). I climbed the lesser one (but still bloody massive) and thought I was gonna die in the process. Yes, Rina, not figuratively, but LITERALLY! Barely breathing when I reached the top, it was gorgeous! You see clearly in
all directions and it´s invigorating to say the least. This it started raining. I mean just PISSING down.  Shit, I have to climb down in the RAIN. We all know climbing down is harder than climbing up, emotionally at least. And when it´s pouring down, it doesn´t make it any easier. Struggling down, I pulled a muscle in my thigh and am still suffering from it days later.  The Gods didn´t like me climbing it I suppose...

I´m staying in San Miguel de Allende right now and it´s gringo central. I think it´s where all southern californians come to retire. I´m on a day trip to Queretaro right now and I have the say, the Spaniards were thorough in thier stomping out of the old religion. There´s gorgeous archetecture everywhere. Churches that are gilded and painted and have the most gory and bloody Jesuses I have ever seen (thanks to the Dominicans). I visited the famous Our Lady of Guadaloupe and her likeness is everywhere. Good thing they couldn´t quite stamp out the Goddess of yore!
Speaking of God, only He knows how long I´ll be here. I´ll come back when there´s work! My flight leaves on the 20th but I will come back sooner or later. Whatever, I´m just going with the flow!! If anyone has any ideas on where to go in this neck of the woods, lemme know. I´m just wandering about satisying my wanderlust...
love,
tin tin

Tin Tin and the End of the Road

2006-11-24T18:20:00.000-08:00

just hate it when a holiday comes to an end. today is my last day in my beloved singapore. these people are just like me. they looove to shop! and it being christmas time, they come out in DROVES! yesterday i went to orchard road which is a world famous shopping area here. ok, not ONLY do they have topshop, they have warehouse, dorothy perkins, accessorize (yes devon, they do), monsoon, and other of my fave u.k shops. i was about to have a fit on the floor until i realized the authorities would probably lock me up for that (or just cane me to be on the safe side). i mean, "heaven" wasn't even the word for it! now, before my english friends start laughing
uncontrollably about my love of dotty p's, need i mention one american store that you all go in fits of ecstacy over that we all think is just ok- do i need to say those words? forever 21. yes, i went there!   anyhoo, before singapore i went to brunei. on the ferry there i met a kid on holiday and we hung out the whole time we were there. it was really nice to have someone to see brunei with and nice to have a male escort. men kept looking at me like i was decked out with only a thong and pasties! and i had on baggy pants and long sleeved tops! i think it was my hair
though... all the women with the exception of foriegners and chinese wear the veil. it was trippy!  in malaysia a lot of muslim women would wear the veil with jeans and tee shirts but in brunei they wore the head to toe full covering. no burquas or anything but the chicks were well covered. one afternoon me and caspar (my new friend) went to the waterfront where you can get a little boat to take you around. it was cheap (compared to the rest of the country which is sooo expensive!) and we got to speed around the waterways, saw more proboscis monkeys, and went to
kampung ayer. k.a. is a village built on stilts over the water. it's massive, the largest of it's kind.  there are mosques and police staions, schools and fire staions all built over the water on wood or cement columns. we sped around the stilts going in the narrow passageways and seeing children playing on the piers and on the roofs. there aren't many tourists that come here so the kids were all going nuts just to talk to us. our driver lived in one of the homes and
asked us to come in to meet his family. it's a big open plan home with 9 kids running around. there are 5 families that live in that house, all related to him. sisters, brothers, nieces and nephews. it was great! we chilled out talking to his wife who spoke some english and played with the kids and took pix of them. there was a 3 month old that i went nuts over and i walked around with him for the duration. the kids all got dressed up in thier halloween costumes
(although i don't think they celebrate it here) as ninja turtles andpower rangers and we took more pix.  it was so much fun! after we finished with our tour we got the pix developed and gave them to the driver.  he was flabbergasted. i don't think they had many pix of the kids especially all together like that. the next day i went to the museum where there was like, a million little kids. all the girls wore the veil (they were around 7 years old) and in the dark parts
of the museum they looked like ghosts moving around.  they kept coming up to me as if on a dare just saying
"hello" or "hello-how-are-you" all running together like it was one word. i sat next to the teacher and we talked for a while. the kids start learning english pretty much from the get-go. the girls all wanted to sit next to me and they listened intently to our conversation. it was so cute!   i know some of you were worried about me going to muslim countries. there's nothing to be concerned with. people are people and are mostly good and generous. the men for the most part seemed either to want to have sex with me or to protect me. although they would only LOOK at me in that wolfish kind of way, but never say or do anything else. the women were all nice and wanted to talk. i never encountered anything bad with the women. hands down, they were all cool and mostly wanted to know what i thought of thier country! the people here are proud of their diversity. they love that malaysia is made up of so many different cultures. i saw veiled women walking hand in hand with chinese and men of all backgrounds chatting at the same table in a coffee shop. now, how often do you see that in the states?   i leave today and i guess it will be good to get home. my bed, my cats, the usual things i miss in la. from here i will most miss the call to prayer. i love hearing the call punctuate the day. it's beautiful.  people flock to the mosque and it's a little quieter in town. especially in brunei,the place just stops at prayer time. i'll have to find a recording of it so i can relive the moments at my place...

love,
tin tin

Tin Tin and the Monkey Hunt

2006-11-20T18:13:00.000-08:00

monkey urine smells like someone pissed in a bucket of peppermint and eucalyptus. you can tell monkeys are around when it smells like a mister was filled up with the potion and sprayed thru a fan. it has a bit of a pleasant reek to it. the jungles of sabah are permeated with the smell. there are simply monkeys everywhere! the first time i saw a proboscis monkey (no, really, look them up! they're really cool looking) they were at the top of the trees along with a mass of hornbill birds. at the bottom of the trees was half of a wild pig (dead obviously), a massive monitor lizard pecking at the corpse, and a 3 meter crocodile lounging on the shore. welcome to the jungle, baby!
this was quite the appetizer to the main course. as we sped along in the boat thru a maze of rivers i almost fooled myself into believing that i was in the amazon again. except the trees are not so tall and the water not so black. the smell was the same, the sweet green smell that one smells when they're surrounded by foliage and water. no air pollution, no garbage, no obnoxious music thumping out of someone's souped up honda civic. nothing but the hum of our boat's motor and the bird and cicadas when the motor was cut. marvellous. the lodge was a really nice place with hot water and yummy meals. there was an australian group there of assorted nature lovers and academics. rowdy and welcoming as is natural to all aussies. we all went on the night cruise to look for crocs, owls, and other
things that go "eeeeeeeaaaaaaakkkkkk" in the night. we weren't dissapointed. my fave was when we saw 2 crocs slide into the water, chill out with just thier eyes above the water line, then slip under. nowm we were all of 5 meters away from these crocs so when they slipped under i was just praying that one wouldn't smack the bottom of our very little boat with his tail. prayer recieved and answered. one of the more spectacular sights was when the driver switched off his torch and all the stars came out like it was oscar night. just stunning. a gentleman in front of
me started pointing out the constellations and planets to me. we kept talking and come to find out, we know
2 of the same booksellers! one in london and one in la! such a small world! we spend half the night talking about books and travel and the next day after he leaves i find out he's quite a famous author! tim flannery. i have no idea who he is but he's apparently a well respected scientist and scholar as well! who knew! anyhoo, i few other people came in that next day and it was a great mix. one girl had just travelled all over east africa alone, one worked
for glaxo drugs and lived everywhere including nigeria. i didn't bring up "the constant gardner", i liked him too much.
the next morning i did a trek into the jungle a bit and i encountered loads of leeches. i am happy to say that i stayed clear away from any plant (exceedingly difficult in the jungle) and i always looked out for the little buggers at the tip of the leaves. i had leech socks on and 2 different kinds of insect repellant. bastards were gonna not suck on ME! we
saw a millipede and when you touched him your finger smelled like almond paste. we saw elephant tracks and wild boar tracks. and more leeches. ick. anyhoo back in kota kinabalu. feels like a metropolis now! the jungle was so relaxing. i have to say, if you've never been in the jungle before, you really need to experience it before you die. it tests what you are made of and i'm always suprised at what i can deal with and what i can't when i'm there. poisonous spiders, i can smash them with my boot. leeches totally freak me out. crocodiles are fascinating and
i can't take my eyes off them (we saw a baby one too that was only 2 feet long!). pouring sweat down the crevice of my back, i detest. who knew? oh, on a side note, you know this is a muslim country right? well, for some reason there are christmas trees and christmas carols blasting out of every store. i forgot it was close to christmas! it's
really strange but it's nice. everyone really is accepted here.
anyhoo, i'm off to somewhere tomorrow. don't quite know where yet but i'll decide in the morning...
love,
tin tin

Tin Tin on Top of the World

2006-11-11T17:16:00.000-08:00

wow. so many things have happened over the past few days! i've met such characters, been in lush beautiful places, and met at least one guardian angel.

i went to the cameron highlands which is kind of in the middle of mainland malaysia (you may want to check your maps for this email!). it's famous for tea plantations and primeval jungles. they estimate that the jungles there have been untouched for the past 130 million years. no ice age touched this place as it's so close to the equator so this jungle has been around for an eon! i stayed at a great hostel in my own room (unfortunately i had to share a bathroom that was quite a ways away - outside) for a whopping $6 a night. brutal what they charge here for a decent
room! the next day after i arrived i signed on for a day tour. first up was the mossy forest trek. i was assured this was a very easy trek taking a maximum of 1 hour and very mild walking conditions. he lied. my GOD did he LIE LIKE A LYING LIAR! we all know that princess tin tin does not walk. she does not exercise. she does nothing strenuous except power shop. THIS the princess does well and with abandon.  walk/trek/hike she does not do. i told the man this, he said, ahhhhh, very easy walk. damn him.   to get to this mossy forest we hop in an old land
rover and go down a paved road that turns into a dirt road real quick like. oh, it's been pissing down rain here too. we go up hilly narrow roads and slip down steep paths. you know the indiana jones ride at disneyland? they obviously were inspired by this particular trip. the landie slips and slides down roads lined with deep impenetrable jungle on either side. the guide is a real quick witted guy who gives a running commentary the whole time he is driving.
this makes me slightly nervous as i wish he would keep all focus on the road but as usual, i act nonchalant as my stomach is turning in anxiety. we get to the mossy forest area, hop out and head into the jungle.  mossy? try muddy. my boots immediately make a sucking sound with every step i take and i am immediately grateful i bought the top o the line ones. i end up needing them more than i knew i would. as we make our way up the veeeeery narrow dirt track, up, up, over massive pools of mud, over fallen trees, thru sharp brush that slaps my face, the realization that this is no 1 hour trek and it sho as hell ain't an easy walk begins to fall heavily on my mind. too late to turn back and i really don't want to look like a big pussy in front of everyone, so onwards and upwards. after scaling massive fallen, rotting trees (that i'm totally positive have, like 80 species of poisonous spiders in it) i'm drenched in sweat and
start getting in survival mode. i mean, to get over these trees which are surrounded by really gooey mud, you have to really find where you should place your foot, what branch you can grab to keep your balance, how to hoist yourself onto the log (with a minimum of mess), how to lower yourself off the log avoiding the mud and the eerie massive hole that is lurking where you least expect it and you have to do this all without making a mistake. one false step and you could seriously end up on your butt covered in mud! anyhoo, to make a veeeery long trek short, i climbed thru
felled limbs, around sheer drops that ended in the jungle below, to the very top of the hill (mountain, to me) where there were no safety rails, no NOTHING but the air around and a clear view into forever. i stood on a small rock at the tippy top, trees and jungle below and understood why people love to do this. it's a feeling of accomplishment and exhaustion with a wee tinge of lunacy. i mean, i can't see myself doing this again especially after that pain in
my legs the next day, but it was fun while it lasted! after that we visited the orang asli tribe (translates as original people tribe) and i got to do the blowpipe. i kicked ass! i hit the target twice, one bullseye, while the rest of the group never even got close to the target! i think i was a tribesman in a recent past life. this tribe lives in the jungle and
still hunts and grows their own food. but they are becoming modernized. i saw a couple of mopeds outside the raised wooden houses with chickens milling about.  everything is becoming modernized. on my last morning in the cameron highlands i went to breakfast at the local roti shop. i sat down at the only table that had any chairs available. there were 2 men sitting down and about 6 empty places. i place my order and other men start sitting down. as i look around i notice that women are sitting at their own tables. there are tables for women and tables for
men. shit. did i mention that this was a muslim establishment? so all the women have on veils and some of the men are in traditional muslim attire. ok. so i'm a white woman sitting at the men's table. i get my food and a man with the traditional clothes sits next to me and asks if it's ok. i'm like, sure!  he asks where i'm from, i say canada, and we chat for a while about how wonderful i think his country is (it truly is!). the bus is coming so i ask for the check
and the waiter said that it has been paid. "are you sure?" i ask. he motions to the counter "he has paid for you, do not worry!". i have never seen that man before in my life. "no, it's ok, i'll pay it", "no ma'am, he has paid it for you!". i go up to the gentleman and thank him. he's very kind and just said to enjoy my trip! this man wasn't sitting at my
table, i didn't see him at the cafe at all. he was just a normal local getting his roti and decided to do a good deed. and the roti was maaarvelous (and under $1 including tea).   i am in penang now which is an island on the west
coast kinda near the thai border. it's a touristy place and i only came here as a pitstop so i could catch the plane to kuching in sarawak (look it up). i checked into a really nice hotel ($20 a night) and have been hanging out at the backpackers place next door. someone started to give me shit about being american, i apologized for my countrymen (for the 2nd time this trip) and sat down and we chatted for 4 hours. a man named reggie sat down next to us and picked up the thread of conversation. reggie has been traveling constantly since the 1960's. he now has a
place to lay his head in bangkok as he is getting on in age but he is rarely there. he used to travel by ship back in the day. not cruise ship, but massive cargo ship. he went from london thru the panama canal to asia. he slept in old army barracks in cairo. he has been all over the middle east and was regaling me with stories of india and trekking around the border with pakistan. he is a traveler in the truest sense.  he's still going. tonight he takes a 3rd class train to bangkok (18 hours) and goes to the doctor to get checked up. he thinks he has prostate cancer. he
says if that's what it is he doesn't want them to do anything about it, he says hes had a good run. he's 81. he's also a wee bit senile, but still he goes! these are just a few things that have been going on during my travels! there has been so much more but it's too much to write about here. maybe one day, i'll tell you a story like reggie has been telling me.
love,
tin

Tin Tin and the Night of a Million Fireflies

2006-11-07T17:09:00.000-08:00

i walked down the long pier, stumbling in the dark towards the canoe. as i gingerly stepped in i noticed some tiny flashing lights around me. it reminded me of the pirates of the carribean ride at disneyland.  you know what i'm talking about. when you board the ride, it's all quiet except for the waves lapping against the boat. you're mesmerized by the fireflies that seem to be right next to you but are more than an arm's reach away. you know that they're only flashing lights but you don't care because you're in that moment. yeah, you know what i'm talking about. as the boat slipped from the dock, real lightning blinked softly in the distance. the river was dark and the banks were nothing but jungle. more blinking. as we neared a patch of trees the firelies came full in view. the trees were swarming with them! they flashed like a christmas tree all lit up with fairy lights! they lit all the trees around in a brilliant dreamlike way. the lights were reflected in the murky water and the ever insistant lightning lit the jungle
and made the millions of fireflies seem insignificant. but then the lightning would subside for a while and we would make our way down the riverbank by the flashes. it was slow going but i wished it was slower. a bright crack of lightning with thunder tumbling hot on its heels scared the hell out of me. we were veeeery close to the jungle (i kept thinking of peru and the crocodiles) but almost swimming in fireflies.  soon the rain came and it was time to make our way back. it came fast and relentless like jungle rains do and was as refreshing as a coke on a hot day.   but how did i get here???
i took the train from singapore. a slow way to go but i was paying homage to the man who surveyed this land 80 years ago. the railcar was bitterly cold (tropical countries tend to overcompensate when they have air con) so i went to the front of the car where the side door was open. a fresh breeze poured through. i sat on the edge by the opening, as close as i dared at least! a worker passed by and opened the door opposite so i got a nice cross breeze. on either side of me were woods. not jungles, but sweet smelling tropical woods. i got terribly drunk on the smell and think it would make a fabulous cocktail! sometimes the shrieking of the brakes would send me back inside
to watch "miss congeniality 2" but more often than not, i would be hanging on the the door sniffing the air outside.
i got to kuala lumpur (kl), checked myself into a cheap hotel, and slept. i took a day trip to the countryside the next day and went to a hindu temple with an ungodly 260 steps. how i managed in that heat i do not know. when i reached the top, i got blessed (got the smudges on my forehead) and by the time i got down, the rivulets of sweat had made a nice red stream down my face. on that trip i met this old Broad in a sari. i mean Broad in the best sense possible! she was only 70 but had no teeth and was from south africa. she had a metal rod in her hip and she traveled alone. her kids asked her if she wanted a big party for her 70th birthday. she said that was a waste, give her a plane ticket. by god, i was looking into my future! this is me! her name is govinda and i wish her many
blessings, please send a prayer for her too. kl has a funny crosswalk sign. looks normal enough to begin with: green slowly blinking man walking (you are free to cross), green man starts blinking rapidly (you'd better run or you're gonna get hit), and it ends with red man. i think he's a dead bloody man because he didn't move his ass fast enough. just my guess though. i've done some shopping here and it's been fabulous!  tomorrow i move to tanah rata and visit the cameron highlands. there's been enough bustle and hub bub for me for a while. i need to save my energy for singapore! kl is an interesting place. at once modern with the petronas towers and fabulous architecture and dirty with litter on the streets and strange smells in doorways. it wants to be singapore but doesn't succeed. it's like her slutty little sister. but i don't mean that in a bad way...
love,
tin tin

The Adventures of Tin Tin in Singapore

2006-11-04T16:41:00.000-08:00

O.M.G. i love this city! i arrived at 2am on Friday to muggy air and an "engrish" speaking driver. this is good as my malay is nonexistant (except terima kasih- thank you) and after a 21 hour flight am in no mood to learn it. i am immediately struck by the lack of garbage on the side of the road. anyone who has been to asia knows that the roadside doubles as a trash bin and people just fling stuff out of cars with no care as to who is around (or behind). when on the plane i was chatting with the stewardesses about where i was staying. i said it was an hotel 81 in geylang.  they giggle. i'm mystified. what's wrong with it?  ummmm yeah, so it's apparently in the red light district (or red "lite" as i like to say now). i get there and there's a smattering of hookers and thier pimps on the other side of the road. i have to say that the hookers are no more poorly dressed than my girlfriends on a night out. they're pretty and look cool! the pimps however are all classic asian pimp looking fellows chain smoking ciagarettes. i'm so
tired i don't care and just want my bed. come to find out, the area is totally fine and it's not dangerous at all. the pimps and ho's don't hustle they just stand there being all quiet and laid back. not like the hookers at home! AND they're not crack addled!  sanitized prostitution. there's a little india here so when i wake up, i make that my first stop! i find my way to the subway and find everything surprisingly clean and easy to use.  first off, i eat at the magnificent dosa place my dear friend rina told be about. damn, girl, i ate there twice in one day and it was sooooo yummy! anyhoo, the shopping is fan-freaking-tastic and so for the rest of the day i get my hindi on! i get an accupressure treatment so i can continue my frenetic pace. today i went to chinatown and shopped a little more (dahlia, i got you something amaaaazing!) and then to raffles where i felt like a dirty urchin and was way out of place. and my god, the women here are all sooo tiny!  i mean skinny little bitches! i have to wear a large or extra large! bastards!   ok, for all those with the desire to come here, heed my advice: pack nothing. seriously, you can buy an
abundance of anything you want here and it's 1/3 of the price in the states.   so, i'm in this one big market with a warren of stalls with super cute clothes (Luis, i'm sick that i'm not doing bratz! there is the CUTEST brattiest stuff here and it's all cheap as chips and tiny. lemme know if i should get some stuff for next time). i walk out and
what is before me??? holy mother of god. it's topshop. i nearly drop to my knees in style submission (rina you know this is true). the holy grail is before me (as well as a dorothy perkins!).  it's a small one but theres a bigger one on orchard street. when i come back, on my very last day in singapore, right before i fly home...that store will look like a bomb hit it. i will shop til i pass out.  i cannot wait! anyhoo, tomorrow i leave for kulala lumpur, malaysia.  i'm taking the train as i have been reading about the man who built the train thru the jungles of malaysia in the 1920's. i want to follow in his footsteps.   i can't wait to come back here. the city really feels like home to me. not all plastic and palm tree infested but like the home in your heart. the people are friendly, the food is unbelievably good and cheap, it's so safe and clean and everything is in english.  it's a good start and finish for what may prove to be an adventurous trip. i'll be hitting mainland malaysia, sarawak, sabah, brunei, and kalamintan (the last 4 are known as borneo). venturing into the jungles and going on the headhunters trail. i'll be needing a singapore sling after all that!
love,
tin tin

Tin Tin Dances With the Waves

2006-05-23T16:34:00.000-07:00

The storm had snagged on a mountaintop but the waves were raging like it was in full force. I have been walking around Lake Geneva for the past hour trying to log the varied smells in my mind. The sharp salty marine smell that really released it's odor when the waves crashed against the rocks. That smell was abundant. All I had to do was lean over the railing and catch some of the spray on my face and inhale at just the right moment. There were flowers and trees, castles and barbecues and the air so pure it carried them all, indescriminate of importance. But back to
the storm... Around the lake was a little paved walkway that was dotted with trees. On my left was the water. It was
up this afternoon like a gale force blowing thru the lake. It smashed against the rocks and splashed over the wall to drown the odd misfortunate human. I thought of it as a game. Time the wave, calculate the intensity, and check the retreat of the prior wave.  For an hour I ran between the onslaught of a massive wave and threw mocking glances at the ones that couldn't quite make it. It was a dance of sorts. One that kept me on my toes and laughing so hard I didn't think that I could make it past the next wave for shortness of breath. Then the drizzle. I was master
of the dance but God loves to play practical jokes. I prayed the drizzle wouldn't turn into the storm, not yet, not while I still had a 15 minutes to walk!  Trying to stay under the weak protection of the trees, I hightailed it back to the hostel just as the storm tore free from the mountaintop. I fell asleep to a glorious storm.
Switzerland is a magical place. Home to mountains jagged and snowy and food and CHEESE to the likes of which have never been witnessed! And for some reason the cows here are almost all white with light biege spots. They have massive udders too. Glen, you would be reeling in extacy over these cows! For those of you who don't know, Glen is quite the cow-nessiour!  Thier hair so blonde and udders so large you would think they were LA cows!
I love this country! So much to see and do! And so many bloody places to shop! I've bought more jackets than even I can justify...
Glad I have work when I get home...

Love,
tin tin

Tin Tin and the Great Race

2006-05-20T16:32:00.000-07:00

Of all crazy things to befall me! I am in Monaco during the Grand Prix! Actually it's the week before the Grand Prix when, every 2 years, the vintage cars race. I hear the cars but the views are all barred and walled up like Alcatraz. I sincely hope this doesn't interfere with my sleep tonight. I'm only here for the night. Tomorrow I leave for Switzerland
to drown myself in chocolate! I now have 47 countries under my belt. Having missed my friend Eva in Madrid, I left for Andorra. It's a small country nestled in the Pyrenees mountains between Spain and France. Loads of Spaniards go for the skiing but apparently Americans don't get there too much. My hotel receptionist kept looking at my passport in wonderment. I ran around that small country for a couple of days going to Ordino as well as Andorra la Vella. Ordino is a tiny little town whose buildings are all made of the same kind of stone in the same kind of style. That style is a marvellous cross between rustic Italian farmhouse and modern. It doesn't sound like it would work but it really does! The air is so pure and the views so exquisite, it's really no wonder why this country is under massive
amounts of construction to accomodate both new residents and more tourists. Oh, and shopping here is 25% less than the rest of Europe! I did indulge, indeed...
From Andorra I went to Carcassonne, France. I have read about the Cathar connection here and the slaughter that occurred in the 1200's so of course, I HAD to go! The old walled town is still mostly intact and I walked the walls almost the whole way around. There are fairy tale type pointed turrets amok and they smelled as stale and musty as a delicious old book! I was reeling in extacy! I'm looking forward to getting to Switzerland. I plan on going to Montreaux, Innsbruck, and anywhere else that I can breathe some clean mountain air. This has been a suprisingly difficult trip so far. I've been constantly on the move trying to conquer new territory. These tiny little countries are quite far from each other and some can only be accessed bus. But really, I'm sure you don't pity me in the least!
It's been gorgeous so far and I get to wallow in my medieval towns and soak up history. Sometimes that's better than relaxing on a gorgeous beach. Having said that...maybe I'm wrong. I'll have to test out my opinion by soaking in the sun next time.
Do you hate me yet?
love,
tin

The Varied Adventures of Tin Tin

2006-05-14T16:26:00.000-07:00

Cinderella never had it so good! Dressed in my new favorite outfit, a rose colored salwaar kameez with loads of embroidery at the ankle and with bangles to match, I went to the ball and danced with beautiful women in saris and salwaar kameezes and handsome turbaned men.
My friends in London, Ranj and Rina, put together the May Ball. It's a night packed with music, professional dancers, a dj, dhol players (fabulous drums), yummy food, and a raucus dance floor. I dressed up in my oh so indian attire, Rina in her beautious white, heavily embroidered outfit, and Ranj in his navy and silver wedding suit and we hit the
ball. To make a long story shorter, after all the food, the dancing started. Damn, do these people like to dance! Hands were in the air, people pressed together on the crowded dance floor and the bangra banged. Then the dholis came out. Three loud drums that are kinda like bongos beaten with sticks but infinitely cooler. Everyone went wild! Well, at least I think they did because I was dancing so hard and getting into such a trance, I could have been the
only one there and I wouldn't have noticed! The music throbbed and we all bounced and shook to the rhythm.  It was magical! When the night ended, we all got into the Volkswagen and drove to East Ham before we turned into pumpkins! By the by, I have a new family now as Ranj's parents are going to adopt me...
AND Rina fulfilled her promise made to me in Fiji that she would take me shopping on Green Street. A whole street full of indian clothing stores, food shops, and shoe stores. Waaay better than Artesia at home! We went bangle and clothes shopping and honey, let me tell you, that chica can bargain! She's like a shark gnawing on a leg- she does not let go. The price will drop just from her sheer willing it to! Bless her, if we went shopping in LA she would make the Gap give us 20% off for absolutely no reason! God love her! When I first arrived on this side of the world, I went
directly to Wales to hunt down my pretty little friend Toad. Armed with only an address and general direction (i.e.: north.) I hopped on a train to Conwy in the north. Conwy is a lovely medieval walled town defended by a beautiful but imposing castle. The walls are all intact and there are Tudor era buildings galore there. In other words, heaven in my eyes!  When I got there I hopped a bus to Colwyn Bay, got off in the town center and asked until I got directions to
Toad's flat. She was most definitely not expecting me as she never checks her e-mail so I didn't know if she
was home or even living there any more. When I knocked on the door, the intercom came on and I asked if Toad was around. It was her! I had caught her at home! I told her there was a a surprise at the front door. She came down and was shocked! It was sooo good to see her as it had been over a year and a half since we'd last seen each other. That night we went out with her friend and as we were walking down the sidewalk, we heard a rustle above us in the bushes.  Our sidewalk was slanting down while there was another sidewalk right above us. We look up and see a cane waving in the air protruding from the bushes. No one was making any noise from said bushes so we were a
little confused. The cane kept waving. Toad said "Sod it" and went to see an old man drunk as, well, an
old Welshman, lying in the bushes quite tangled up.  Her and her friend proceeded to lift him out of th bushes, up the embankment, and onto the sidewalk.  Meanwhile, I was laughing my ass off and attempting to take pictures of the event. Eventually they set the old man off on his way home and I pulled myself off the ground and stopped the flow of laughter and tears. Such is a perfect night out!
Tomorrow I'm off to Madrid to see my dear friend Eva.  Then I will continue my conquest of the world by proceeding to Andorra, Monaco, and other points unknown!
With love,
Tin Tin

The Strange Life of Tin Tin

2006-02-16T16:23:00.000-08:00

I´m writing you from an internet cafe whose roof is held up by timber strapped together with strips of llama leather. The soundtrack is various bands on parade for Candelaria with fireworks and dancing.  This is a strange life indeed. I quit Bolivia today for Peru because by the time I got where I wanted to be in Bolivia I would not be able to get back to Lima in time for my flight. The reason is this: there are 2 airlines in Bolivia, one is on strike and is not flying, the other is over booked and no flights are available until a couple of weeks from now. So I am making my way overland back to Lima by a different route than the one I originally took. Aaaack.   One thing I have learned on this trip is to never say that you are going to hate a city before you have ever been there. And don´t trust other travellers to know your taste. I thought I would hate La Paz. Big city, dusty, dirty, poor as hell. I fell in love with it.
It is all those things I mentioned but somehow so much cooler, nicer, crazier than I ever expected. It´s a city in a bowl, surrounded by mountains. And the bowl runneth over with terracotta buildings spilling over the lip of the mountains, skyscrapers filling the middle of the bowl, and shantytowns scattered everywhere else. I don´t thing there is a level street in the city, everything is steeply up and down and being about 3600 meters above sealevel, going 3
blocks is enough to turn your lungs into a quivering mass and set your head a spinning. The poor assault you at every turn and if you don´t see thier hand in your face, you catch thier scent from the street above. Markets abound. On one major street there are vendors that spill onto the street. Where I´m supposed to walk, I don´t know. I dodged cars and weaved around Andean women like a pro before too long and stepped gingerly around oncoming taxis like a drunken ballet dancer.
On the street where the market stalls met the road, there was a different series of vendors every 50 yards. One area was nothing but shoes, then skirts, then bananas, peaches, grapes, fish, grain, and anything else that you could desire. One after the other tumbling downhill, the fruit choked with exhaust and the fish declaring war against your sense of smell. If the Andeans didn´t make me heave, the fish certainly did!   Somehow I felt utterly at home and safe there. Even though it´s a notoriously dangerous city. I got to know the streets, how to avoid the outstretched hand wanting bolivianos (the money there), and where to find a kick ass pair of white ankle boots (the epitome
of Bolivian style, very au courant). As much as the city has to offer, they couldn´t offer me a camera.  Actually, they did have cameras, but they never wanted to open up a package of batteries to show you that the camera worked. Very odd, like I´m gonna spend $600 on a camera that you can´t find a battery to. As you can understand, business is difficult there.
Now I´m in Puno, Peru. The very pit that I declared never to step foot in! I arrived today and hailed a bike-taxi and fell right in the middle of one of thier greatest fiestas, Candelaria. It´s something to do with the Virgin Mary and involves bands and dancing secretaries. More on this later...
Anyhoo, I hope everyone is healthy and happy because that´s what really counts!
I send you all un gran beso!
tin tin