As some of you may have heard, Pete and I have jumped on the "why the hell not" bandwagon and moved to Salalah, Oman. We've spent the last few days at the airport trying to retrieve our luggage *never fly Oman Air, or at least bring all baggage with you on the plane and don't check ANY OF IT*, snorkeling with Iranians, being introduced to "His Excellency," wandering around the ridiculously large and marbled new palace we've been offered as part of our work contract, drinking free, freshly and locally grown and squeezed any-fruit-you-want juices at the Hilton *where our work is based*, chasing camels, goats, cows, gazzelles and sheep out of the middle of the road, and watching heaps of dolphins and hairy fat men jump around in the ocean. It's been quite an experience so far.
This is all started when we realized that work at the dive shop in Railay, Thailand was really not to our liking. Not to dwell or anything, but the manager was a completely disgusting, shamelessly sleazy, nauseatingly nefarious, rotting fucking alcoholic warthog with absolutely nothing to offer the world in the way of usefulness, reliability or management skills. Actually anything related to sobriety was beyond his realm of understanding. So.... we did a little talking and a little emailing and here were are in Salalah, and about a gazillion times happier. It took a week of being holed up in a 5 star hotel in Bangkok due to the airport closure, with only 100 dish buffets 3x daily, steam rooms and delightfully fluffy King sized beds to jump on, to offer us solace. After staying at fairly ratty hostels and a house furnished with a bed and random cupboards that smelled of low tide when you were so unfortunate as to turn your face into them, we found ourselves quite tickled and thanking those Thai PAD protesters while we forked into the 7th course at breakfast. *OK, it wasn't that gluttonous, but damn near close.* I'm using a Slovenian computer and can't find the parentheses button, so sorry....
So Oman. A few things: Oman is surrounded by Saudi Arabia and the "Empty Quarter" to the west, UAE to the northwest, Yemen in the south and 1,700 kilometers of coastline on the eastern side. The Sultanate is really full of wonders. His Majesty Sultan Qaboos is gay *don't tell anyone, it's not exactly kosher around here, even tho the man has almost single-handedly made this country as successful as it is today and is very highly revered despite his gaiety and gayness. Salalah has been a major trading port for Frankincense for ages, and altho the smell reminds me of my Grandfather's Catholic funeral when I was 12, it's not so bad. I guess. Yesterday I stopped the truck for camel crossings at least 5 times, turn on the Emergency lights and W-A-I-T while they sniff the air for the stench of their personal leader: the poopy ass one foot in front of their face or maybe they will stoop down to see if there might be some grass growing from the pavement by your window. Stupid and funny looking animals. If you hit one in the daytime apparently you can be fined up to $100,000. So drive slowly. Hitting one at night relinquishes you of responsibility, so you can drive as fast as you want. And people do; I think the worst drivers I've ever come across have all congregated in Salalah, and the ones who couldn't handle just driving shitty without alcohol all moved to Cape Town where the beer is cheap and readily available.
The camels aren't really used for anything but status symbols it seems, and occasionally milk and beheadings on the auspicious occasion of Eid-Ad-Adha *the Feast of Sacrifice*, at the end of Ramadan beginning December 8. Beheadings happened at intersections, on the sidewalks downtown, on the left hand side of the road, on door stoops, anywhere, really. And then, apparently the Indians who live in town, most of them vegetarian, have to then clean up after the decapitations. Very nice.
So far we've been hanging out with the Tomb of Job from the Old Testament, archaeologists excavating a 4,000 year old settlement down the road, a civilian F-16 instructor, His Excellency of course, dolphins and guitar sharks. And, thank Allah, our bosses could not be any sweeter this go-around.
The weather here is clear and a lovely 26 degrees. Yesterday, and amazingly the day before were exactly the same! This will continue until March at least. And coming from rainy rainy Thailand, we're quite happy. Nights are deliciously cool and quiet, minus the Call to Prayer *which still wakes me up every morning at sunrise. I'm sure that soon I will be able to sleep through that, the hollow banging noise coming from the patio upstairs, the doves cooing into the air conditioning, and Glen, the snoring Canadian with a badly tuned French horn for a nose at night. Soon....
I will try and write more *if this is possible after the quarterly novellas i always send out and will take photos and upload them to flickr. And I finally joined facebook, so stop telling me I really need to; I've got a nasty head cold; my luggage is slated to arrive "tomorrow"; I got the company van stuck in the sand the other day and had to have some local Bedouins drag it out for me with their Land Cruiser while I sheepishly tried to pretend it wasn't me who was in charge, *this happened the day before yesterday to the boss, so I don't feel so bad now*, tonight is "Mexican Night" at the buffet and I can't wait to start eating.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Sunday, November 02, 2008
nudibranch magnifique!
Finally I've managed to get ahold of an underwater camera and taken it down with me whilst diving. Check out the rest on flickr. (Follow the link to the right. You won't be disappointed.) And I've only seen this kind of nudibranch once...good thing the camera was there!
Thursday, October 02, 2008
biggest of its kind
We hiked up those stairs in pouring rain, while on our way up, a man came screaming down the the other side with a squirming and fesity poisonous snake...we moved even faster.
no it's not a gun
Cool shadows in the Hindu temple up 207 stairs outside Kuala Lumpur make for interesting pictures.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Jungle Update
I am living in the jungle...Three nights ago I killed two enormous and hairy spiders that truly had mandibles -- I swear 2 cm long and was half the size of the book I'm reading (Shantaram)Bam! Dead by the hand of Jessica. Meanwhile, Peter was in the other room squealing with his hands up in the air. There's a frog that lives in the bathroom that does not move forward, but only backwards. Geckos of course. Squirck-Squirck-Squirck, a surprisngly loud and different sound than you would expect from an amphibian...ALl the imaginigs of bird calls (I think even the Wind-Up-Bird Murakami talks about)
Friday, August 01, 2008
digging new rows
It's rainy season here and the Mekong is high.. 6 days ago it flooded Khen Khoan's garden -- ripe with asparagus, beans, basil and cilantro. Kellie and I helped re-dig the rows in preparation for the laborious task of re-planting all over again.
up close and sniffy
As an alternative to town, K and I tuk-tuked it 3k south and found Mr. P and his sweet wife and plenty of goats happily having babies and giving up some of their milk supply for farm-made goat cheese and goat yogurt. Both of which I and Kellie the vegan sampled regularly. There were pigs, chickens, pheasants and pigeons toddling around as well.
acrobatics over the Mekong
Moving on to Vang Vieng, we found out upon arrival via the local bus that the main activities included ganja and tubing down the Mekong, where you can stop at any number of 2 0bard for a beer or a mulberry mojito. The mojitos being sold by our new friend Emily, a high school math teacher from Moscow. residing at the organic farm K and i stayed after realizing that town was not exactly our scene. Town... that is another story. I'll get to that later.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
the latest
Tonight at the internet cafe I saw no less than eight transgender/transvestite men to women. They were propositioning left and right, particularly to the Frenchies, who abound in Vientiane. We appeared in Vientiane the other night after leaving Hanoi at 5 pm the day before. This was a 23 hour bus ride. Getting into the bus station, about 10 sangthaew (little trucks with 2 benches in the back) and tuk tuk drivers who call wanted to drive us into town, bum rushed the seven dirty, exhausted, impatient and oh-so hungry falang (foreigner) as we tried to go down the bus stairs. All shouting prices and waving us over, grabbing our arms, steering us toward their vehicles... Kellie and I and two Welsh people broke free and headed away from the chaos towards the entrance to the bus station where we bargained another, seemingly-understanding driver to take us into the center. Little did we know.....The picture above is the Welsh people (Zeb and Holly) and Kellie in the back of the coal truck we found ourselves in after we realized that we were not in fact heading towards the city center, but were more than 40k towards the next town. There had been only a slight miscommunication and he had thought we said 60,000, not 6,000. Oops. The coal truck we waved down from the side of the road was happy to accommodate us and dropped us off just outside of the center and we had to take another tuk tuk to a lovely little Indian restaurant to finally eat dinner....Ahhhh.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
bike ride!
SE Asia is finally here! After a month in Indonesia, and a few days sampling the culinary delights that are ubiquitous in Singapore, Pete and I arrived in Bangkok, where we met up with our local expat friend from UC Santa Cruz. Matt's been living in Bangkok and working for the UN for 3 years, so he knows the ropes and has the connections; he also taught us smatterings of Thai, took us to the best restaurant in Thailand (a few photos of the food and our licked-clean plates are on my flickr; see link below); introduced us to his very cool Thai friends and his visiting New Jersey Jewish parents, both of who were totally shocked when Jesse (my cousin) and I sadly had to reveal that even tho all Jewish people we meet insist we surely must be Jewish that we were in fact not. Matt's been a key addition to our fun and happiness factor over here.
We took some advice and spent 10 days in a Vipassana Meditation Center in Prachinburi, Thailand, where we did not speak, read, write, make eye contact, exercise, or really do much else but meditate or sleep for 14 hours a day. It was a life-changing experience for sure, and I can unequivocally say that I am a happier, calmer, more positive and accepting of life's experiences person after getting deep deep inside my psyche and the nature of my consciousness. I did not decide to give up the beer-drinking however. Some people apparently expressed concern that I might just want to now meditate all day....Fat chance!
Jesse, Kellie (my sister is here traveling with me for almost 3 months!!!!!), Matt and I are working our way up thru Laos, Cambodia and (mostly) Vietnam together over the next few weeks. More recently we've gotten into some dodgier parts of town, i.e. Lakeside in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Late at night Kellie and I could hear the rats splashing and squealing while at the pool party taking place in the large puddles that had collected outside of our $5/night room. Sleep was interrupted by the rats or the occasional prostitute or drunken "fa rang" ambling down the hall that was more than just a tad reminiscent of urine-stained tile and rotting wood. Mmmmmm.
Today we're in In Ho Chi Minh City or Saigon, where your day can consist of a bicycle-driven cart by a sweet old man who will show you letters of praise from Teresa Smith from California, and Bob Owens, "Van is just about the best tour roller ever!" Huh? Or buying tissues or gum --Happytyne-- from kids and women with babies on their shoulders who may be working for bad bad people; incredible incredible vegetarian Vietnamese food, enormous wholesale markets with people puking in front of them (this was Matt after lunch); sprinting and dodging thru the 16 motorbikes whizzing by each second to cross the street; the viewing of jars of deformed embryos -- effects of the Agent Orange the US sprayed years ago at the War Remnants Museum. On the opposite wall you can also see pastel pictures drawn by little kids of deformed children reading and writing, people fishing in clean blue rivers, US bomber helicopters, underneath which lay massively charred bodies, dollar bills; or Kellie's favorite: the contemplative man in the wheelchair, playing guitar and pondering over the gruesome affects of the war on the people as well as the environment. There are camo planes flying thru blue skies and fluffy clouds, dropping bombs in the background with smiling children in the forest. (Agent Orange and its Victims was the title). I think we all had some terribly tough moments today at the museum. Especially being Americans....
Tonight was supposed to be the big going out night, but alas.... (We spent 3 nights on a small land mass on the Mekong in Laos, 1 night, but 2 days at the gianormous rat rec room at the Happy Guesthouse #9, where we were unsurreptitiously offered opium and weed every time we stepped out the door. (You do know what "happy" means, don't you?) A day and a half in the lovely little town of Chau Doc, on the semi-border of Vietnam, just off the Bassac River proved to be quite enjoyable and with a kick-ass vegetarian restaurant to boot. All 4 of us long ago chose to eschew the action of animal-eating, so almost every meal is a shared feast. We took a 6-hour boat ride down this river and the Mekong into Vietnam. Noisy, but pretty epic to come into Vietnam that way.
So, no going out tonight due to the fact that the puke lunch consisted of noodles with MSG-ridden, salt-infested god knows WHAT vegetable (??), slimy bean sprouts and an oddly fishiesh, odoriferous, very odoriferous indeed, snail and scarab infused sauce/ooze tofu and/or gluten-maybe meal. I saw 2 rats; one in the jaws of an enormous cat, and another scurry under our table. Matt felt something scurry across his sandal and when he looked under the tablecloth he kicked over a brick and out scatted 10 cucarachas, plus the couple that had jumped around his feet. Matt was adversely affected and is now sick, puking in his room after we searched thru miles of flip flops, 10 to a bag. Buy one; you buy all! We wandered around upstairs; another maze of cute underpants, silk local scarves, 20x magnified Ralph Lauren polos, extra thick face masks. Jesse and Matt each bought one for the thick smog of pollution around here. Tonight we're taking the night bus to Na Trangh. The seats even recline almost all the way! I've heard that the ride is beautiful, with unspoilt beaches giving way to rugged coastlines where the forest drops into the sea, boats laze in the bays, and small towns pop up in the mountains and the coast. Once in Na Trangh I'm hoping to do a little English teaching /volunteering there to get ready for working in a few months.
Life is oozing with a completely full sensory overload. Spices, grilling meats, jasmine, durian "king of fruit" and jasmine mingle with the smell of exhaust from diesel buses. From urban elephants to ladyboys, from dog masseurs/flea finders to fortune tellers; everything you could imagine is here.
Pete is on his way home next week for a very important wedding (he's playing guitar while his friends walk down the aisle), so he can be me reincarnate while there i guess.
I miss you all; love you all and hope to hear back. I've uploaded most of the photos on flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stratosphere/sets/
We took some advice and spent 10 days in a Vipassana Meditation Center in Prachinburi, Thailand, where we did not speak, read, write, make eye contact, exercise, or really do much else but meditate or sleep for 14 hours a day. It was a life-changing experience for sure, and I can unequivocally say that I am a happier, calmer, more positive and accepting of life's experiences person after getting deep deep inside my psyche and the nature of my consciousness. I did not decide to give up the beer-drinking however. Some people apparently expressed concern that I might just want to now meditate all day....Fat chance!
Jesse, Kellie (my sister is here traveling with me for almost 3 months!!!!!), Matt and I are working our way up thru Laos, Cambodia and (mostly) Vietnam together over the next few weeks. More recently we've gotten into some dodgier parts of town, i.e. Lakeside in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Late at night Kellie and I could hear the rats splashing and squealing while at the pool party taking place in the large puddles that had collected outside of our $5/night room. Sleep was interrupted by the rats or the occasional prostitute or drunken "fa rang" ambling down the hall that was more than just a tad reminiscent of urine-stained tile and rotting wood. Mmmmmm.
Today we're in In Ho Chi Minh City or Saigon, where your day can consist of a bicycle-driven cart by a sweet old man who will show you letters of praise from Teresa Smith from California, and Bob Owens, "Van is just about the best tour roller ever!" Huh? Or buying tissues or gum --Happytyne-- from kids and women with babies on their shoulders who may be working for bad bad people; incredible incredible vegetarian Vietnamese food, enormous wholesale markets with people puking in front of them (this was Matt after lunch); sprinting and dodging thru the 16 motorbikes whizzing by each second to cross the street; the viewing of jars of deformed embryos -- effects of the Agent Orange the US sprayed years ago at the War Remnants Museum. On the opposite wall you can also see pastel pictures drawn by little kids of deformed children reading and writing, people fishing in clean blue rivers, US bomber helicopters, underneath which lay massively charred bodies, dollar bills; or Kellie's favorite: the contemplative man in the wheelchair, playing guitar and pondering over the gruesome affects of the war on the people as well as the environment. There are camo planes flying thru blue skies and fluffy clouds, dropping bombs in the background with smiling children in the forest. (Agent Orange and its Victims was the title). I think we all had some terribly tough moments today at the museum. Especially being Americans....
Tonight was supposed to be the big going out night, but alas.... (We spent 3 nights on a small land mass on the Mekong in Laos, 1 night, but 2 days at the gianormous rat rec room at the Happy Guesthouse #9, where we were unsurreptitiously offered opium and weed every time we stepped out the door. (You do know what "happy" means, don't you?) A day and a half in the lovely little town of Chau Doc, on the semi-border of Vietnam, just off the Bassac River proved to be quite enjoyable and with a kick-ass vegetarian restaurant to boot. All 4 of us long ago chose to eschew the action of animal-eating, so almost every meal is a shared feast. We took a 6-hour boat ride down this river and the Mekong into Vietnam. Noisy, but pretty epic to come into Vietnam that way.
So, no going out tonight due to the fact that the puke lunch consisted of noodles with MSG-ridden, salt-infested god knows WHAT vegetable (??), slimy bean sprouts and an oddly fishiesh, odoriferous, very odoriferous indeed, snail and scarab infused sauce/ooze tofu and/or gluten-maybe meal. I saw 2 rats; one in the jaws of an enormous cat, and another scurry under our table. Matt felt something scurry across his sandal and when he looked under the tablecloth he kicked over a brick and out scatted 10 cucarachas, plus the couple that had jumped around his feet. Matt was adversely affected and is now sick, puking in his room after we searched thru miles of flip flops, 10 to a bag. Buy one; you buy all! We wandered around upstairs; another maze of cute underpants, silk local scarves, 20x magnified Ralph Lauren polos, extra thick face masks. Jesse and Matt each bought one for the thick smog of pollution around here. Tonight we're taking the night bus to Na Trangh. The seats even recline almost all the way! I've heard that the ride is beautiful, with unspoilt beaches giving way to rugged coastlines where the forest drops into the sea, boats laze in the bays, and small towns pop up in the mountains and the coast. Once in Na Trangh I'm hoping to do a little English teaching /volunteering there to get ready for working in a few months.
Life is oozing with a completely full sensory overload. Spices, grilling meats, jasmine, durian "king of fruit" and jasmine mingle with the smell of exhaust from diesel buses. From urban elephants to ladyboys, from dog masseurs/flea finders to fortune tellers; everything you could imagine is here.
Pete is on his way home next week for a very important wedding (he's playing guitar while his friends walk down the aisle), so he can be me reincarnate while there i guess.
I miss you all; love you all and hope to hear back. I've uploaded most of the photos on flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stratosphere/sets/
Sunday, June 29, 2008
so stylish, she even made her earrings from femo
Kellie has arrived in Bangkok! A week after Jesse, and today we are finally out of here, on our way to seasidy Trat and over the Cambodian border at 7am. The family vacation has begun!
Sunday, June 22, 2008
a phallacy
The first sunrise at Angkor Wat, the Queen of all scores of temples in Cambodia. The 8th Wonder of the World was our playground for an awe-inspiring, exhausting, sweaty, and full-of beauty 3 days. The photos on http://www.flickr.com/photos/stratosphere/ illuminate more....
Sunday, June 01, 2008
This little piggie
Don't worry, that isn't blood on the little porkpie, but reddish dirt. We went on a bike tour in Ubud, Bali and visited a plantation with all sorts of cool produce and crops, and the piggie was there snorting it up.
That's right!
Just one of many, many Hindu statues depicting Shiva the destroyer. And I think he's ready.
Idealist.org
Sorry, some propaganda for those of you who know or are involved in non-profits. Idealist.org, which is a fabulous and highly recommended volunteer networking website is allowing all non-profits to list their org's for free for the month of June (Usually it's $60). So, pass this along to anyone it might interest or help. Thanks.
Friday, May 02, 2008
New Zealand huts
When you go backpacking (tramping in NZ) if you don't bring a tent you end up staying in these little huts with all sorts of random people who're sleeping, coughing, cooking, snoring, farting and steaming up the windows. It was a completely packed bar with no bartender this night; more than 40 people crammed inside a ridiculously small space and all faced with the impossibility of going outside for fear of being bitten to near death by sandflies. It was not a very pleasant experience and for those of you who may end up on a tramp, I recommend a tent. And if you're an honest person, you put $10 a person in the box per night. What did we do? Ha ha.
Way too much of this
What's heavier than a mackerel, sits on your front and is carried up and down a ladder all day?
our 6 week life
Apples.... If I never saw another one for the rest of my life I certainly wouldn't mind. At the end of the apple season Pete and I picked in excess of 120 tons of those fuckers. But, now we are in Singapore, using free internet at the airport on our way to Bali. No more apples. I am being timed and only have a minute left before I'm logged out, only so I can log back in again and keep using the free-ness. It is SO GOOD to be in SE Asia. So so GOOD.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
What now?
Let's see: interesting topics to discuss: I now know 3 songs on the ukulele; we're selling our Toyota Cynos for plane tickets; I can recycle my Lonely Planet New Zealand guide to some poor, misguided, and ill-advised Kiwi victim, leaves are changing color; I ate fabulously delicious veggie burgers for lunch and tofu gyros with a dready Frenchie for dinner; and greatest of all: I'm never going to pick another piece of fucking fruit unless I plan on eating it for as long as I live, at least in another 2 weeks. We're off to Indonesia, maybe Singapore, and possibly Bangkok in 3 weeks. Still have yet to finalize the arrival destination, does anyone have any suggestions? There is talk of a Thai vegetarian retreat with no speaking, touching, gesturing, or even masturbating! Sounds interesting to me.
We're watching Michael Moore on Oprah. Second day in a row that I succumbed to her seductive big hair and witty questions. I did, however learn Oprah refers to her genitalia as her va j-j. The rain has been on and off, on and on and on and then off again for the last two days. And ladders, apples, puddles, huge heavy bags of evntual money, early morning and the 2 lazy, broken Americans do not congeal so well.
The photo above is of a dress at the Museum of Wearable Art in Nelson. Very cool.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Milford Sound
After a hellish drive we arrived here at Milford Sound, perhaps one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. We got here just before the clouds moved in and took over, living up to its reputation as the second rainiest place in the world.
Abandoned....
This was on the side of the road when we were driving into CherryLand (Alexandra). Much has happened since then of course. Motstly cherries.... We just took a little road trip from the bottom of the South Island to the top and are now waiting for apple season to begin. Pete and Jessica's new career in fruit picking! Not the one we envisioned, but a fairly decent moneymaking venture nonetheless. At the moment we're in Motueka at a friend's house staying on mattresses with NZ's $20 bill on them. I'm drinking Tasman Bitter beer, listening to Spoon, eating a backyard-garnered blackberry gallette and desperately trying not to scratch my 109th sandfly bite. Oh boy.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Saturday, January 12, 2008
An update and pictures at long last
Daniela y Facundo, our two most favorite friends in CherryLand.
Cherries, cherries, cherries, never have I touched, squuezed, dreamed of, sang about, or thought more completely about a fruit. Cherries....Always wash your fruits and veggies before you eat them. Believe me, I am merely one person in the chain of events of how that scrumdittliuomptious little morsel gets to your mouth. And I can tell you, witohut question, that you should always at least run things in the tap. Piece of advice #1, learned in Central Otago, working for Summerfruit Ltd on Earnscleugh Road. #2, be prepared.
Peter and I are celebrating our first day off in 12 days. Whew! We're staying at a little lodge with skiiers in the summer, rolling our bellies around after an incredible dinner of Indian food again, more local Suavignon Blanc, and a walk back round Wanaka Lake. We have met some incredibly fun and wonderful people, our Spanish is improving tremendously; Peter can speak complete sentences now, que bueno! Beauty surrounds us everywhere we look, and we're building so much character everyday, you wouldn't believe it.
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