"Tanzania" via ACM in Google Reader

Elephants

2012-05-24T15:26:47Z

I woke up refreshed and feeling like I was over my 24 hour bug. We had told our driver that we would be ready to go again around 10 am. As we ate breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant, the same waiter that we had had the previous evening made a bee line towards Brennan’s stomach once again. Brennan, who was visibly annoyed, smacked his hand away a few times, but the waiter apparently wasn’t taking the hint. Then, Brennan grabbed the waiter’s arm and forcefully removed it from the area of his abdomen, but the waiter was still undaunted. Finally, Brennan had to resort to contorting his body in strange configurations in order to keep his stomach out of arm’s reach. In all, it was quite a strenuous breakfast! Once we had eaten our fill, we hit the road once again. We returned to Angkor Thom in order to see some of the things we had missed the previous day. As we neared the southernmost Victory Gate, we saw a group of monkeys along the side of the road- so we asked our driver to stop. We got out and took some pictures, but Brennan got a little too close to one and it shrieked at him. The funniest thing that we saw was when a car drove by and honked at the monkeys, which were now blocking part of the road. The biggest monkey smacked the side of the car as it drove by, as if to say “that will teach you to honk at me!”

As we passed Bayon, we saw a group of elephants there. They were there to give tourists a ride around Bayon. We stopped and took some pictures, but decided that an elephant ride could wait. One of the main things that we had missed in Angkor Thom was the Terrace of the Elephants, which stretched between Bayon and the Terrace of the Leper King. We had missed it by taking the alternate route past Baphuon and Phimeanakas the previous day. We walked past the first terrace, which contained many carvings of elephants along it, until we reached the second one, this time stopping to see the statue of the leper king himself, which was located on the roof of the complex.

After this, we left Angkor Thom and visited some of the myriad of ruins which lay to the east of it, an area referred to as Eastern Barray. We started at Preah Khan, one of the largest temple complexes in the area, then moved on to Preh Neak Pean, which has a single spire coming out from what used to be a group of pools, but was now dry pits. We went to Ta Som, known for its gate which is overgrown by a large tree, and climbed around on Ta Keo, a pyramid which, since it was never finished, lacked the elaborate carvings of the others. After this, we decided to go to lunch since it was already 1:30.

We ate at a restaurant which our driver recommended, being one of the few sit down restaurants in the vicinity of the temples. It ended up being very good, and gave us enough energy to continue our temple exploration. I had saved the best for last- Ta Prohm was a complex very similar to Preah Khan, except that it was overgrown by jungle. Instead of just one overgrown gate, as in Ta Som, the whole temple was this way. I had also wanted to save this one for last for a more practical reason. I figured that the chance of seeing a snake here was a pretty good one, and wanted our day to be at nearly an end before Trudy got frightened and refused to go to any more temples. In the end, my fears were unfounded- we saw no snakes that, or any other, day.

Ta Prohm was worth the wait, though. It really felt like we had discovered a lost civilization deep in the jungle- except for the man who was dressed as a policeman and who insisted on showing us around. In all of the temple complexes, we had the most fun just exploring by ourselves, content with not knowing the complete history of a site or being personally shown the highlights. I didn’t have the heart to tell the man that we didn’t want a guide, so we followed him around- looking at the area where they filmed “Tomb Raider” as well the movie “Two Brothers”. I gave the man a few dollars for his trouble when we left. Everyone agreed that this was one of our favorite temples.

After returning to our driver, we decided that we would take a balloon ride in order to see Angkor Wat from the air. He warned us that it was very expensive- $15 per person! We told him that balloon rides were nearly ten times this price in America and we, therefore, had never taken one. Alas, when we arrived at the balloon launch, we were told that it was too windy and that they could not fly. Instead, we opted for an elephant ride, which was the same price. Trudy said that riding one to the top of Bakheng Hill to see the sunset from the temple there, as I suggested, would freak her out and that she would much rather take the safer route around Bayon. Alas, when we reached Bayon, all the elephants had been moved to the hill, so we were left with no choice.

The 30 minute trip up the hill was one to remember. Justin and Trudy took the lead elephant, while Brennan and I followed closely behind on ours. We both had professional elephant drivers with us, of course. Trudy was quite frightened, thinking that her elephant would misstep and go plummeting down the steep slope- but this didn’t happen. Soon, we were at the top climbing on our last Khmer temple. It appeared that many other people had the same idea as we did, since more and more people were gathering on the temple as time went on. Most of these had chosen to walk up the hill using a different trail than we had taken with the elephants. Since it was only 4:30 and we had a whole hour to wait until sunset, we decided that the elephant ride and seeing the beautiful view was enough for us and that it was time that we returned to the hotel. We walked down the hill together and were able to reach our hotel before dark.

We ate in the hotel’s restaurant once again, luckily for Brennan- the waiter with the stomach fetish was nowhere to been seen. This time they did start showing “The Killing Fields” right at 7 pm. Trudy and Brennan didn’t really care to see it, however, so they returned to the room. Justin and I joined them when the movie was over, around 9 pm.

Angkor Wat

2012-05-23T13:52:49Z

Since we had a 6:30 a.m. flight to Cambodia, we had asked the hostel to call us a taxi for 4 am. This time we couldn’t take the MRT there, since it did not begin operations until 5:30. We had also asked for a wake-up call at 3:30, which we ended up not needing. Trudy woke up first, she looked at my watch and determined that it was 3 am. She then decided to get up to dry some laundry that, in our haste to leave Hong Kong, we had packed in a plastic bag before it was completely dry. I woke up soon afterwards and felt that I could finally take a shower, which I had not been able to do the previous night while I felt so chilled. I couldn’t shave, however, since my electric razor had ground to a halt in Hong Kong and I had then realized the one thing that I forgot to pack- the cord to recharge it! After showering and helping Trudy with the laundry, I looked at my watch- it was still 3 am! We figured out that it must have actually been 2 am when Trudy got up. By the time our wake-up call came, we had everything ready to go.

We dragged the kids out of their beds and into the waiting taxi at 4. The kids usually complained about Trudy’s insistence that we get to the airport two hours ahead of time for international flights, but this time we really needed it. First, on our way to the airport, the driver ran into some unexpected construction on the expressway, so that we had to enter it from the next on-ramp. In addition, we had flown into a different terminal than where we had caught the MRT, so we got confused about which was which and told the taxi driver to drop us off at the wrong terminal. After going inside and realizing our mistake, an employee told us that it was a 20 minute walk to the correct terminal, and that a taxi really wouldn’t speed up the process appreciably, since they had to exit the airport after leaving the terminal that we were at before heading to the correct one.

So there we were, at 5 in the morning, lugging our suitcases between terminals at Changi airport. Luckily for us, airport employees must not walk very fast, because we reached the other terminal in about half the time that they had estimated it would take and were able to check in for our next flight with no difficulties whatsoever. Most of us dozed on the 95 minute flight which followed.

We landed in the tiny Siem Reap airport a little behind schedule. The airport had no gates to speak of, the airplane landed on the airfield and then we walked to the terminal building. Siem Reap is a town of 150,000 people which has the distinction of being the closest town to the complex of ancient architecture best known for one particular temple complex contained within its midst- Angkor Wat. Siem Reap’s population had boomed as the tourism trade in Cambodia took hold and the popularity of visiting Angkor Wat had increased during the proceeding decades.

Our hotel, the Golden Temple Villa, had promised a pick up service at the airport, but we found ourselves waiting there for about 20 minutes before someone arrived. This would not have been a big deal, but I had been in contact with the minister of the Siem Reap Church of Christ via email and knew that their Sunday service started at 8 am that day. It was about 10 after 8 by the time we reached the hotel. We, of course, didn’t expect our room to be ready that early, so we asked if they would keep our luggage while we headed to church. The same driver who brought us from the airport offered to take us to and from the service for $8. Although Cambodia has their own currency, the riel, most transactions are performed using U.S. dollars. It was a strange feeling to be spending U.S. dollars for the first time in over 3 months, especially to be spending them in a foreign country.

We finally made it to church about 30 minutes late, and only after our driver had gotten turned around trying to find it and had phoned the minister, Chann Lork, in the middle of his lesson, to get directions. When we arrived, we could see how it was easy to miss the building. It was open in the front, so that the congregation sat outside, in plastic chairs that had been placed in the dirt. There were a little more than a dozen people at the service, but only a few adults, with the average age being about Brennan’s age. Chann was the only one who stood in the building, which extended behind him down a hallway leading to his living quarters. He was barefoot, as was the custom indoors in Cambodia. He nodded to us as we took our seats with the rest of the church members.

Chann soon finished his lesson, which was given in Cambodian, complete with notes written on a chalk board behind him. We sang a few songs and then he launched into another lesson. We followed along the best we could, luckily his notes on the board included the references to the Bible verses he was going over written in English. It was difficult to concentrate, the language barrier notwithstanding, due to the cars which were driving by on the busy street which was just 20 feet from where we sat- at times blaring music or announcements from a loud speaker. In addition, roosters clucked and strutted around in the yard next door and a puppy made his way around the congregation, sometimes stopping to bark at one of the kids or to play tug-of-war with Brennan’s backpack.

At the close of the service, Chann asked if I would like to come up to say a few words. I removed my shoes as I made my way into the enclosure and then gave an impromptu speech about how we had traveled a long way to get there and how happy we were to be there and how, even though America was very different from Cambodia, Christians were essentially the same everywhere, at least in their hearts. The service ended about 9:30. We thanked Chann for having us and apologized for being late, we then met his wife, who had been in the back of the building taking care of the small children, before we were whisked back to the hotel by our driver, who had returned for us.

Since our room was still not ready, the hotel put us in a temporary room and served us “welcome drinks” consisting of lime juice in decorative silver cups. Soon, we decided to eat an early lunch and to go see Angkor Wat. We ate at the restaurant which was attached to the hotel; they had very good food as well as a relaxing atmosphere. From the dark wooden tables inside, we could look out into the lush vegetation which surrounded the hotel. There was also a pool table located inside, near the kitchen, which the kids took advantage of. Our driver was waiting at 11 to take us around to the various sites.

Our first stop was the office of tourism, where we paid $40 a piece for all but Brennan (who was free) to get a three-day pass to the “archeological zone”. We bought three-day passes, even though we were only going to be in the area for two days, since they were the same price as two 1-day passes. We found that there was always someone on hand at the various sites who asked to see our passes, which were laminated and contained pictures that the tourism staff took of us.

We then headed to Angkor Wat itself, the first complex that one comes to on the road leading out of town. It was amazing! We spent the next two hours wandering around its corridors, climbing on its parapets, and generally exploring around the place. It was very hot outside, which was probably compounded by the return of my fever. Nevertheless, I knew that this was one of the highlights of our tour, and was determined to enjoy it.

When we were ready to move on, our driver took us to Angkor Thom, a lesser known, but much larger and more spread-out complex than Angkor Wat. Angkor Thom was surrounded by a large stone wall which could be entered by driving through one of five “Victory Gates”. At the very center of the complex was Bayon Temple, one of its main attractions. The temple is filled with faces which had been carved into the rock, 200 in all; many are located on stone towers which rise from the temple. The faces are said to be representations of the Khmer king who ruled during the 12th century, when the temple was built. After wandering around this area for a while, I found our driver and, feeling quite sick, asked him to take me to an emergency trip to the bathroom- where, by the way, they had someone to check my archaeology pass as I entered.

The family was busy looking for me by the time we returned. The driver had told me that he would move the car and would be waiting for us at the “Terrace of the Leper King”, near the northernmost Victory Gate, so we set off across the grounds of Angkor Thom to find him. On the way there, I wanted to walk past two more temples, Baphuon and Phimeanakas. Justin was walking ahead of the rest of the family on the raised parapet leading to the former, when he spotted a large snake with a green body and orange head. Luckily, it darted off before Trudy, who is deathly afraid of snakes, could see it. To my surprise, that would be the only snake that anyone would see on the entire trip.

Baphuon ended up being closed to tourists, but we were able to see it from afar. It has been described as the world’s largest jig saw puzzle since archeologists had de-assembled it in order to restore it- then the plans for the temple were destroyed when the Khmer Rouge took over. Archeologists had been trying to piece it together ever since. We also took a quick look at Phimeanakas and kept moving, finally locating our driver past some huge square pools of water and through a decaying stone wall. Even though it was only about 4:30, we decided that we had seen enough for the day, and asked to be taken back to the hotel.

Once there, we discovered that our room had been prepared and that our luggage had been transferred to this larger room. Since we didn’t really feel like leaving the hotel, we ate at the attached restaurant once again. While we were eating, the waiter reached over and patted Brennan on the belly, saying “you look very full”. Brennan looked horrified. He had been slightly chubby in junior high but had not previously experienced such a blatant assessment of his weight. We tried to assure him that the culture was quite different in Southeast Asia and that the waiter had most likely meant it as a compliment, but Brennan didn’t completely buy it. After we had eaten, we waited around for the movie that the hotel was showing at 7 pm. The board said that they would show “The Killing Fields”, which we thought would be a good, albeit heartbreaking, introduction to Phnom Penh for when we traveled there. Since the movie had still not started by 8, the family, with the exception of Justin, decided to turn in for the night. Trudy and I were especially tired after being up for 18 hours straight. Justin, however, had begun playing pool with a number of 20-something backpackers and wanted to finish his game. He said that a movie did eventually come on, but that it was “A History of Angkor Wat”, rather than what we had expected. We didn’t even wake up when he came to bed around 9:30.

Singapore

2012-05-22T15:35:05Z

We had Annette call us a taxi for 8:45, since it was a 30-minute cab ride to the airport and we had a flight at 11:15. The airport was actually located on Lantau Island, so we headed there once again, where we boarded our flight to Singapore. We watched out the windows as the plane took off to bid a fond farewell to Hong Kong.

The flight took about 4 hours, after which time we began our approach to Changi Airport on the outskirts of the city-state. Singapore, at 4.5 million inhabitants, is an island nation which is both a single city as well as an independent country. With its abundance of water and palm trees, it looked much more tropical than our previous destinations. This was not surprising, since it is only 85 miles north of the equator. The heat in Singapore at that time, however, was no worse than any of the other places we had visited.

The kids were most struck by the machine-gun toting police who were standing guard at the airport. Singapore is known for its hard-line stance on drugs (trafficking holds the death penalty); I assumed that they wanted people to know that they meant business right from the start when one entered the country.

We took Singapore’s MRT to a section of town called Little India. I had found a hostel which was located on a hill overlooking a park which was not too expensive. Nevertheless, at about $100, our stay in Singapore ended up being the most expensive place that we stayed the entire trip. Despite this increased cost, it had still been worth our while to go to Singapore, since it saved us $100 per person routing through there instead of flying directly to our next destination from Hong Kong.

Since it was around 5 by the time we checked in, I asked the women behind the counter where a good place to get Indian food was. One of them, who happened to be Indian, took great pleasure in mapping out for us where her favorite restaurant was. After we had gotten settled in the room, we set out in search of the place she had told us about. We realized on the way to dinner that Little India was indeed aptly named. Indian people were everywhere, as were Indian restaurants, shops, and Hindu temples. Justin and I left Trudy and Brennan on the grounds of one of these temples as we headed past where we needed to turn for the restaurant in order to exchange money at a place that had also been recommended by the hostel staff. This done, we then backtracked to where the others were waiting for us.

The restaurant ended up serving the most authentic Indian food that we had ever eaten. It was all served in dollops on top of a huge banana leaf that served as both a place mat as well as a plate. As most people there were using the traditional method of eating with their fingers, Justin and I joined in, while Brennan and Trudy held out for silverware. After a very filling meal, we took our time walking back to the hostel, pausing to look at the various stands of wares which lined most of the road leading back.

Once back at the hostel, the kids played pool in their common room, while Trudy and I caught up on our email using the computers which were located there. By 11, we forced everyone to return to the room to go to bed, since we had a very early flight the next morning. Suddenly, I started shivering and felt very chilled. I huddled under the blankets in bed but still felt very cold. Trudy was sure that I was running a fever. Nevertheless, I soon fell fast asleep.

Big Buddha

2012-05-21T01:47:06Z

I woke up at 7 and went into the living room, where I watched the ships go by while everyone else slept. Trudy soon woke up, as did Annette, who was expecting some workers at 8 (they were finishing some renovations upstairs). Annette fixed us breakfast and told us that Friday was the day that the American warships headed out from the harbor. It was as if we were watching T.V. and she was reciting the viewing schedule to us. Sure enough, we saw five American ships head out over the next several hours.

I wanted to go to Lantau Island, across the channel from Hong Kong Island, which was home to the largest outdoor Buddha in the world. This was the one “must see” item on my list for Hong Kong. We asked Annette, who had never been there, if she wanted to come with. She said that she would, but that she had to wait until afternoon for the workers to leave. This was fine, since the kids did not wake up until about noon, and it gave Trudy the chance to finish washing our laundry from the previous week. We left the house around 1 pm, after having a quick lunch at the house. This time we took a “minibus” (essentially a van) to Central, which was a bit quicker than one of the double-decker buses we had taken the previous day. We then took the MRT, mass transit rail, to a station on Lantau Island. Upon arriving there, however, we found out that the cable cars that we had wanted to take to the Buddha were not running and that we would have to take the bus there instead.

The bus ride ended up being quite interesting. It was a 45-minute trip which wound through the mountains which covered the island- past waterfalls, beaches, and even a stray water buffalo who was walking near a lake. It was at this point that we finally caught sight of our goal- sitting atop one of the highest peaks. The bus soon arrived at the foot of this peak, where we spent the next 90 minutes climbing the 250-odd steps that led to the Buddha, taking pictures of the amazing statue, taking in the view from the top of the mountain, as well as exploring the nearby temples which were located on the grounds of a monastery. This would be our first, but certainly not last, encounter with a Buddha during our trip, Buddhism being quite popular in the Far East and Southeast Asia.

Instead of returning the way that we had come, we decided to get on a different bus, which would take us to a small town where we could catch a ferry across the channel. This bus took us by many more water buffalo; we saw at least half a dozen along the road on the way there. When we reached the town, about 30 minutes later, we boarded a ferry which took us right to Central. We were quite hungry by this time, since it was almost 7 pm, so we took the MRT to Kowloon and ate dinner at the Hard Rock Café. We figured that we would have one last Western feast before heading off into the culinary unknown the following day. By the time we returned to the Goachs’ house, it was getting quite late. Trudy made sure that we were all packed for the following day’s travel before we went to bed. The kids, of course, watched more movies on the DVD player in the guest bedroom before they turned in for the night.

Hong Kong

2012-05-18T13:02:10Z

I woke up around 6 am and peeked out of the curtains of our cabin window to see a strange sight- a man and women were riding a motorcycle together directly outside the window! They had been riding on a road which ran parallel to the train tracks, but soon disappeared as the road dipped out of sight. The landscape had transformed while we slept- the flat expanse had been replaced by hills made of reddish clay, while the corn fields had been replaced by rice patties and palm trees. It looked more like what my preconceived notions had been of what China should look like. Trudy got up after I had sat in the passageway for 90 minutes or so, staring out the window, and we decided to have breakfast together in the dining car while the children slept in.

We were able to have a Western-type breakfast of eggs, toast, and coffee there, while still watching the scenery pass by. We once again passed through mostly smaller villages that day, with the exception of Guangzhou (Canton), which was quite a large city indeed. Brennan woke up around 10 am, but all was silent from Justin’s cabin- which we did not want to enter for fear of waking his roommates. Finally, around 11:30, Justin emerged from his cabin. Soon after that, we started getting into a more and more urban environment, complete with skyscrapers and high rise apartments. The outskirts of Hong Kong actually looked a lot more like what we had been used to in Japan. At 1:35, the train finally pulled into the station in Kowloon, across the bay from Hong Kong Island.

We were all very hungry, so we went to the McDonalds in the train station for lunch after we collected our baggage. This would be the start of two days worth of Western food, which we were all missing very much after our experiences on the boat, in Beijing, as well as on the train- much more than we ever had in Japan.

After lunch, we took a taxi to our friends’ house on Hong Kong Island. Aaron and Johanna Goach were actually the brother and sister-in-law of Audra, one of the professors I worked with in Monmouth. When I heard that her brother lived in Hong Kong, I urged Audra to introduce us to him and his family. We had hit it off well, and they later said that they would love for us to come stay at their home during our trip to Asia. The one unexpected part was that Johanna found out that she was pregnant and due around Christmas time. Although they normally visited the U.S. during the holidays, they moved their trip to the summer, since Johanna would be unable to travel at Christmas. This meant that we would still be staying at their house- but they would not be home.

The Goachs’ live-in Filipino housekeeper, Annette, was going to be around, however, and had arranged to meet us at their house. Their condo on Victoria Harbor was by far the best accommodation that we would stay in for our entire trip. During our stay there, it was almost as if Annette was our housekeeper- calling me “sir” and Trudy “mum”, helping wash our clothes, as well as serving us drinks. Even without this, Hong Kong was also everyone’s favorite city that we visited. It stood in sharp contrast to Beijing in being a bright, clean, beautiful city. Especially beautiful was the view from the Goachs’ window, where we watched the huge boats coming into and out of the harbor.

After taking some much-needed showers as well as changing our clothes, we decided to go sightseeing for a bit. Annette offered to show us around the city. She showed us how to take a double-decker bus to downtown Hong Kong, called “Central”. From there, we boarded a cable-car which took us to the top of Victoria Peak, or simply “The Peak” to the natives. From there we were treated with another spectacular view- the skyline of Hong Kong surrounded by the shimmering water which encircled it. Since the Peak was topped by a large shopping mall, we looked around for a while and then had dinner at “Bubba Gump’s Shrimp Company”.

After dinner, we took a taxi back to the Goachs’ house, which was actually just on the other side of the Peak from Central, and settled down for the night. The kids, who were quite impressed with the Goachs’ movie collection, stayed up to watch movies, while Trudy and I went right to sleep.

Train to Hong Kong

2012-05-17T13:34:36Z

Even though our train did not leave until noon, we got up early, ate breakfast at the hostel, and were on our way by 9 am. We wanted to allow plenty of time for getting to the station, as well as for checking in, etc. The hostel provided a bicycle rickshaw to get our luggage as far as the main road, where we hailed a cab for Beijing West Train Station. Since we had bought our tickets at the main train station, we had not yet been to this particular one. It ended up being just as large and imposing as the other, but looked like it had recently undergone a renovation. We went through much the same process of finding out where we needed to check in as we did buying the tickets at the other. We asked a number of people where we needed to go, most of which didn’t speak enough English to point us in the right direction. Finally, we figured out that we needed to exit the station and go to a special foreigner check in area which was located one level lower than where we had come in. The family finally boarded the train to Hong Kong about 11:30.

We had been a little concerned since the family was to be split between two compartments, but our fears were allayed when we saw who was in our cabins. Justin and Trudy had the top bunks in a cabin with two twenty-something girls, one from Beijing and one from Korea, while Brennan and I had the top bunks in a cabin with only one other person, a Chinese woman who was traveling to see her daughter in Hong Kong. Trudy actually had a very good time talking with the two girls in her cabin, while the lady in ours shared peanuts with us and tried to teach us how to say some Chinese words.

I had expected the train to go through many metropolitan areas, once again assuming that China was basically wall-to-wall people, but we actually went through very few on this day. Most of the scenery that passed by looked like something out of the Midwest- with many cornfields and small villages. We were please to find that none of these were obscured by smog once we were out of the vicinity of Beijing. The boys and I went to the train’s dining car for lunch, but Trudy was not feeling the greatest, so she stayed in her cabin with her new friends. The food on the train was all Chinese, of course. It was pretty good, but the family was starting to tire of Chinese food after almost a week of little else. For dinner, we decided to stay put and get a box meal that they were selling from baskets that the staff carried down the corridors, while Trudy mainly stuck with the snack food that another vendor was selling.

Since our cabin only ended up with three people in it, Trudy decided to sleep with Brennan and me so she could have a bottom bunk, leaving Justin with the two girls. He didn’t seem to mind at all! Trudy and the boys read a lot during the trip, while I just stared out the window or talked to people. Eventually, we were all rocked to sleep in our bunks by the gentle sway of the train as it made its way across China.

The Great Wall

2012-05-16T13:08:59Z

Since the tour of the Great Wall left at 6 am from the original Leo Hostel, we asked for a wake-up call at 4:30 in order to get ready and have breakfast before we left. We had asked the previous night when the restaurant closed and the girl that worked there said that it “never closed”. Luckily, we woke up around 4:30 by ourselves since our wake up call didn’t come until ten after 5. Apparently, the front desk was not manned 24 hours, and the timing of the wake up calls depended on when the first employee got up. The same must have been true of the restaurant, which was definitely closed when we woke up and had still not opened when we left for Leo I, at 5:30.

Leo I was in a similar shape when we arrived, the lobby was dark and the front doors were even chained shut. The kids wanted to ring the bell to wake up the employees, but we were starting to realize how hard they all worked (a shift seemed to last from dawn until late into the night), so we held off. Eventually, someone did wake up and opened the doors. By that time, about 20 people had assembled to head to the Great Wall. We then divided into two vans for the two-hour trip to the Wall; we were in a van with a Dutch family of four, as well as two Israeli girls.

The Dutch family was quite an interesting one. They had taken a year off from their jobs to travel around the world for that amount of time. They had two girls who were 8 and 12 years old. The family had just come from nearly 2 weeks in Mongolia, where they traveled with local people and existed off of products derived entirely from yaks. They had lived in tents called yurts the entire time and can traveled 1100 miles, only 100 of which were on paved roads. And I thought our family was adventurous!

The main thing I noticed on the drive to the wall was the smog. Smog blanketed Beijing that morning, so much that most of the nearby buildings were obscured by it. Smog even blanketed the countryside through which we then drove- for the entire two hour trip! The small villages and farms would have been very quaint otherwise, if not for the polluted air which surrounded them. Our driver drove like a lunatic, of course, swerving around bicycles, carts, pedestrians, as well as other cars. We finally reached a small village, Mutianyu, in which we began to climb into the foothills of a mountain range and were able to rise up out of the smog for the first time that morning. That’s when were got our first glimpse of the Great Wall, which capped the peaks of the surrounding mountains.

Within 10 minutes we had parked in the village and reassembled our entire group. We were then given 3 1/2 hours to explore the wall, after which the van would leave for its return trip to Beijing. We had a choice of climbing a trail to the Great Wall, which took one-hour, or taking a chair lift to the top. We chose the latter, wanting to maximize our actual time on the wall, which many of the singles in our group, including our German friend Robert, opted for the former. Since we had not eaten breakfast, the boys and I headed down toward the village to get some, while Trudy headed up to the wall with the Dutch family. Getting breakfast involved running the gauntlet of merchants, just like in Beijing. Some of them literally leapt from where they were sitting and ran to their stalls in order to be there to sell us their product. We found a stand selling different kinds of crepes, where I was able to negotiate a decent price for four of them. We then boarded the chairlift to reach the Wall as well as to deliver a banana crepe to Trudy.

The Wall was amazing- it was easily the highlight of our trip so far. The view was breathtaking and it was great to explore the area on our own, relatively free from distraction. Every now and then we would encounter a strategically placed merchant who had climbed the wall ahead of us in order to sell water at triple the going price in Beijing. Since we had bought a liter of water before we left, we were not interested in their overpriced refreshment at this point. Since only a section of the wall had been restored for tourists to visit, we could only go so far down it before having to turn around and come back. The chair lift had deposited us one-third of the way from one end of the section, so we decided to walk that direction all the way to the end.

This ended up being the right choice, since we found that the direction we had chosen held the most picturesque section, while most tourists had done the opposite and had headed the other way. There were a series of guardhouses along the section of the Wall which we explored, we figured out a way to climb onto most of their roofs to get a better view of the surrounding area. We soon reached a steep stairway that was impassible to Trudy and Nicole, the Dutch lady who had accompanied us from the chair lifts, along with her youngest daughter. The three of them waited as the boys and I climbed the stairs and reached the end of the restored section, which was not far beyond that point. We then retraced our steps to the chairlift, by which time it was 9:45; half of our time on the Wall had been spent.

The boys and I wanted to make it to the other end of the section, and some simple math determined that we would have to move more than twice as fast in order to see the remaining portion in the 90 minutes we had before we needed to descend from the wall. Trudy, however, was content with what she had seen, and opted to wait for us there. We ran for much of the remaining section, stopping for short rests as well as to take pictures in certain spots. We could see why most tourists chose this section, since it was much easier to transverse and did not have quite as many sets of stairs and difficult climbs. One glaring exception was apparent when we reached the end of that section, which could be only reached by ascending hundreds of stairs.

Justin climbed all of these, while Brennan and I were content that we could actually see the end of the section, so we didn’t feel like we actually had to reach it. When Justin came down the stairs, his face was redder than I have ever seen it. Since we were out of water by this point, I told him to play it cool while I negotiated for some more. We found a water salesman on the way back and, despite Justin’s telltale face, I was able to get two waters for the price of one, spending about $1. We then hightailed it back to where we had caught the chairlift up, arriving at 11:15, fifteen minutes before the van was to leave. Trudy was still waiting there for us but she had started to wonder if we were ever coming back.

Luckily, in addition to the chairlift, the Chinese had built a metal toboggan shoot onto the side of the mountain in order to make the descent quickly. We all took turns taking a toboggan slide down the mountain at exhilarating speeds, reaching the parking lot just before the van pulled out. By this time, the sun had burned through the smog and the trip back to Beijing was much more picturesque, although I mostly dozed along the way, exhausted from all that climbing.

It was 1:30 by the time we reached Leo I; we were famished, having only eaten a crepe each for breakfast. Our Dutch friends suggested that we all go to Sakura, a nearby restaurant, for lunch. We all enjoyed this restaurant very much, it had a good mix of Western as well as Asian food, and we agreed that it was by far our favorite place to eat in Beijing so far.

Brennan wanted to go shopping after we had finished with lunch. He had been walking past a display of swords on our way into and out of the alleyway. Occasionally, he had stopped to look at one, following which the shop owners would swarm on us and begin bargaining for the swords. Through this process we had narrowed down which sword he wanted as well as gained a rough idea of how much the sellers were willing to come down on the price. This trip we did purchase his sword, for $12- less than half the original asking price. The only problem that remained was getting it home. We knew that we couldn’t take it on the train we were to catch the following day, let alone any of the plane trips that we had scheduled for later. I therefore inquired back at Leo I about the location of the nearest Post Office, from which we could mail the sword home to the U.S.

Brennan and I then returned to Leo II, where Trudy and Justin were waiting for us. Although Brennan had no interest in going, I talked Justin into accompanying me to the Post Office with the lure of taking a bicycle rickshaw there, even though he was still exhausted from running around on the Great Wall. Knowing that the Post Office was actually not far from our hostel, but still not trusting myself to navigate the winding alleyways which led there, I openly laughed at the rickshaw driver who offered to take us there for $5. Following some brief negotiations, I was then able to find someone willing to take us there for half that amount, which was still slightly overpriced. Soon, we had reached the Post Office, showed them the sword, and asked “America?” While there was no one who spoke a word of English in the Post Office, one thing we could understand was that they weren’t going to send the sword anywhere and the man behind the counter kept pointing towards the main road and saying something like “Hopi mon post”.

We then walked the 10-minute trip to the main road, all the while keeping an eye out for whatever the man had been indicating to us. After reaching the main road and coming up empty-handed, we returned to the Post Office and tried to ask the man to write out our destination in Chinese so we could ask more people along the way. He couldn’t understand us, but this time we though we understood that we should look for “Helping Host”, instead. With this newfound knowledge, we headed back to the main road once again. After reaching it yet again without finding anything, we decided to travel up it, towards Tiananmen Square, and continue our search for a while longer. As we neared the square, I decided that we would stop at a hotel so we could ask the Post Office question all over again. Before we made it to the lobby, however, we happened to walk by a building that looked suspiciously like a large Post Office. We went inside this building instead, having finally reached our goal by blind chance.

Ironically, it cost $2 more to mail the sword to the U.S. than it actually did to buy it in the first place, but, considering his relative contempt of China so far, I was happy that Brennan had found something that interested him. Based on my sense of direction, I thought it would be easier to continue to follow along Tiananmen Square and then turn down the main road which led to Leo I instead of re-tracing our steps past the two Post Offices, but after walking for a while, we seemed no closer to our goal. I decided that it would be easiest to take a rickshaw back from that point, so I found someone who would take us to the hostel for $2. This ended up being an exciting ride- we went down narrow alleys, around sharp corners, and even down some stairs in order to reach the hostel. The man who took us worked so hard to get us there that I gave him an extra $.50 for his troubles. We finally rejoined Trudy and Brennan, just in time to leave to see a Kung Fu show at the same theater that we had watched the Chinese acrobats.

We went to this show with a Russian family, an American man, as well as a burly bald Australian fellow. Three of us sat together, while Justin sat a row in front of us with the American and Australian. The show was just as good as the acrobatic display, if not better. It was the story of a Kung Fu apprentice that had to give up the girl he loved in order to become a Kung Fu Master. It involved lots of fight scenes, as well as acrobatic-type scenes, such as those which featured the young lovers flying through the air on ribbons. The final portion involved displays of strength which were designed to test the new Master, such as lying between beds of spikes and having cinder blocks smashed by sledgehammers over the top of them. The only thing the kids did not like was the moral that you should give up the things you love in order to give yourself fully to Kung Fu. In all, it was a fitting close to our last night in Beijing.

Exploring Beijing

2012-05-15T12:41:29Z

I woke up early, as usual, and took a shower in our interesting bathroom. When the whole family was assembled, we went to get breakfast at the hostel’s restaurant. Justin and Trudy stuck with toast and honey, while Brennan ordered a huge “Western breakfast”: eggs, ham, toast, and a salad, and I had banana pancakes. My breakfast looked more like what I thought of as a German pancake since it was made in a little skillet and therefore had raised edges, but it was very delicious.

It was 10 by the time we left the hostel, but before we could tour Beijing we had an important errand to run. We needed to head to the train station in order to secure our tickets for Hong Kong, which one had to purchase in the city that your train trip originated. We walked up to Tiananmen Square in order to catch the subway to the train station. The subway was not unlike the one in Japan, although there was no vending machine to buy tickets from, everyone went to a manned ticket office, it also cost us $ .40, which was also quite different from what we were used to in Japan.

We found the train station with no problem; we just followed thousands of people who were pushing their way to get in. It took us a while to find where we could buy tickets, though. First, we followed the crowds into the train station itself and went around to various places asking where we could buy a ticket. No one spoke English, of course, but we eventually realized that we had to exit the station and go to an attached building that was expressly used for ticket sales. We waited in line for a bit, but soon realized that there was a special window for foreigners to buy tickets from. The only catch was that there was no one manning this window. I waited in line at the next-door window, but when I got to the front, he directed me to wait at the unmanned foreigner one.

Finally, a lady came to the window and I explained what we wanted. She said that, unfortunately, there weren’t four beds in the same room, that we would have to buy top bunks in two different rooms. Since we didn’t have much of a choice, I agreed to that arrangement. However, when she rang up the price, it was more than I had anticipated from researching it on the internet, $125 each instead of $115. That was fine, but meant that I didn’t have enough cash on me to buy them, since I had tried not to exchange too much money on the boat at the less than prime exchange rates offered there. This meant that I had to find a bank to exchange more money and then return to the train station.

Since we couldn’t see a bank in the vicinity, Justin and I had Trudy and Brennan wait for us across the street from the train station while we went in search of one. We stopped in at a hostel to ask for directions, but had to wait a long time at the front desk before we could ask someone. They told us to go to the fourth floor of an adjacent building, a shopping mall, in order to find the Bank of China. When we got to the mall, it was impossible to find the 4th floor. We found elevators that only stopped at the 5th floor and above and asked many people, none of which could understand what we were looking for. Finally, as we were about to give up, we asked some security guards if they knew where the bank was. They directed us down a back hallway and up a manned service elevator, where we finally found the bank. Getting there that way, it felt like we were part of some secret bank-using society, but I later discovered that we had just entered the building from the wrong side. The bank had a long line of people, waiting for a teller, so I gave Justin some money and sent him back to warn the others that it would still take a while.

By the time I finally exchanged more money, returned to the station, and bought the tickets, it was 12:30. We still wanted to see the Temple of Heaven, a colossal structure that dates from the 1400′s, in which the emperor used to pray for the crops in a yearly ceremony. After walking in what I thought was the right direction for a while, we found only the ancient city walls of Beijing, and had to ask some Europeans where the temple was. They said it was quite a walk from there and suggested taking a cab. We figured that we could afford the $2 cab ride to the temple, so we hailed one, which took us right there.

We spent the next 90 minutes walking around the temple grounds and exploring the ancient Chinese architecture which was found within. It was just the sort of place I wanted to see in China- complete with it ornate, circular temple complex and a granite amphitheater on the far end of the grounds. We were all amazed by the ancient architecture and had a great time looking around. After our 7th try, we were able to find a cab which would take us back to the hostel, and this only after finally convincing a woman driver to take us as far as the subway stop on Tiananmen Square, which was close enough for us.

We ate a late lunch at the original Leo Hostel as we waited for a ride to a Chinese Acrobat show. Since we purchased the tickets through the hostel, the price included a ride there and back. Trudy and Brennan stuck with Western fare, while Justin and I had Chinese food. Trudy ordered a hamburger, this time getting the real thing. We ate quickly, as to not be late to our show. In addition to our family, there was a Dutch couple, and two college-age men, a Russian as well as a Chicagoan, who went to see the acrobats. Since their van was caught in traffic, the hostel called us a couple of cabs and then had a man waiting to pay for them when we got to the other end.

The show was great- the acrobats did all kinds of amazing stunts. We were most impressed by them jumping from a swinging pole and catching themselves on a rope using only their thigh muscles. We wondered if that stunt ever went terribly wrong in practice sessions. When we returned to the hostel, we met up with our friends from the boat for dinner. We all went out for none other than Peking Duck. It was really delicious. Robert, the German, took it upon himself to order lots of strange dishes as well: jellyfish, duck liver, as well as a green bean paste. The eight of us shared all the dishes, which was facilitated by a large rotating disk which made up the center of our table.

After dinner, Trudy and Justin walked to Tiananmen Square with Aya so they could see it all lit up, while Brennan and I headed back to the hostel. It was not long before the family was reunited at the hostel and fast asleep in our creaky beds.

China!

2012-05-14T11:52:44Z

When we awoke, the sea was calm, and the boat did not rock appreciably for the rest of the day. Nevertheless, Trudy and Justin ate little at breakfast- as they were getting very tired of the food on the boat by this time and did not really feel the greatest. We returned to deck, but for most of the day we could see nothing but open sea- with an occasional boat breaking the monotony. Trudy and Justin did eat lunch, we made sure to line up early in order to get the choice food before it was gone. On the previous days, we had gotten there just as the egg rolls or Japanese fried chicken disappeared and had been stuck with Chinese selections that had often left little to be desired. We all had tonkatsu, pork cutlets, for lunch- which was a nice change of pace. The only strange thing was that it came with a salad which was covered with ketchup, instead of salad dressing. Brennan also picked a plate of something that resembled fried apples, but ended up being gelatinous goop that none of us could finish and that no one at the table could even identify. As we ate, we could see that the number of boats outside was steadily increasing. By the time we returned to deck, the sea resembled a big parking lot with all of the boats on anchor that we were passing.

As I leaned over the side of the rail, I caught my first glimpse of land! It was actually not that impressive. Tianjin, being a main shipping center, reminded me of the parts of New Jersey that we used to live near. All I could see were loading cranes and warehouses and the smell was fairly unpleasant as well. The kids were unimpressed and returned to the ping-pong table below deck to play for one last hour. We pulled up a channel and we were at the dock by 2 pm, as promised. After docking, however, there was a 45-minute wait to be cleared by health officials before we could disembark. We had all filled out cards listing any ailments that we had. Finally, we walked down the gangplank into China, where we immediately boarded a bus that took us a short distance to the passenger terminal.

At the terminal, we passed through an area where they stamped our passports, then we picked up the luggage we had checked, and passed it through an X-ray machine on our way out of the building. We were pleasantly surprised by this process, since we had expected the entry procedures to be more involved than that. We then met up with an impromptu group which had assembled. Teddy, since he had done this so many times before, knew all of the tricks of getting to Beijing. He had told us that we could come with him when the boat docked, and we had invariably mentioned this to the Australians, the Brits, as well as the German guy. Teddy was also helping a group of Japanese students get to the train station. No less than 15 people now stood in our group of foreign acquaintances.

Although there were people in the parking lot asking “Bus? Bus?” we knew from the information on the boat that they charged $33/person to get to Beijing. Instead, Teddy directed us to the city bus stop for the 30-minute ride to the main bus depot, which cost us the equivalent of 26 cents a piece. The ride to the bus depot was interesting, to say the least. The bus was soon crowded with people, the driver honked his horn constantly as he swerved in and out of traffic, and we drove past some of the most dismal houses that we had ever seen. The whole town looked dirty, gray, and run down. The bus depot, by contrast, looked brand new, as they had just finished building it in preparation for the 2008 Olympics. The entire area of China we were in was apparently undergoing massive construction projects in order to prepare for this event.

The tickets we bought to Beijing at this depot were less than $8/person, without our friend Teddy, we would have not known where to go and probably would have paid the people at the port the exorbitant prices. The bus we took was, admittedly, a little less modern than the expensive buses. The speedometer didn’t work and it sounded like the gears were going to fall off the bus every time the driver shifted them. Luckily, he didn’t feel that he had to honk constantly during the 2-hour expressway ride to Beijing, just every now and then. The family all had to sit apart, since we were the last to get on, after making sure our luggage had been loaded safely on board. All but Justin sat within a few seats of each other, however, who had found a seat in the back of the bus near the Australian girls. This bus, unlike the previous one, was air conditioned- almost too much, perhaps, since I got very cold before we reached our destination.

I was surprised to see so many open spaces between Tianjin and Beijing, I had thought of China as being wall-to-wall with people. On the trip, we passed a number of fields and small villages, which stood in stark contrast to the urban blight that we had just experienced. The family mostly read and napped on the bus ride. The ride seemed to take forever, probably because we were so tired of traveling by that point. Finally, we started seeing more and more buildings and we could tell that we were entering a large metropolitan area.

On the surface, Beijing looked like any large city- with its buildings, traffic, and smog- but this illusion would soon pass. The bus pulled up to a station, and we all got out, assembling our group one final time. Teddy suggested that we take a cab to the hostel we were staying in, near Tiananmen Square. We had discovered on the boat that a number of the other travelers had booked a room at the same place, and that still others, after talking with us, wanted to stay there. We therefore had two cab loads of people, with our family filling up one.

I had the address of the hostel written down in Chinese, so I showed it to the cab driver, who just shook his head. I rejoined our group, who was still standing in a circle, and told Teddy that apparently the cab driver did not want to take us where we were going. Teddy took my paper, talked to the driver for a few minutes in Chinese, and then told us to get in to the cab. We found out later that, due to the traffic and construction there, cabs didn’t really like to head to that area. Teddy warned us that it would normally take us a few different tries to find someone who would be willing to take us there. The 20-minute cab ride to our hostel cost us about $4, even with the driver having to turn around once to make the right turn and then stopping and asking someone where the hostel was after making it to the general area. After getting directions, the cab turned into a narrow alley that was mobbed with people, honking the horn the whole way to get them to clear a way for us. People were on foot, riding bicycles, pushing carts, hawking their wears, they were literally everywhere. The smells emanating from the alleyway were unpleasant, to say the least.

The cab pulled up to the hostel and let us off. We entered to learn from the proprietor that the triple room I had reserved would never be large enough to fit our family of four. Instead, he suggested that we switch to their sister hostel a bit further down the street where we could have a quad room for the same price, about $40. The hostel staff loaded our luggage onto the back of a bicycle rickshaw and we walked along side as they carted our luggage to the other hostel. People from the shops which lined the street would say “Hello, hello” and then mention what they were selling. We would experience this same “running of the gauntlet” every time we walked down the alleyway to get to the main street.

Trudy and Brennan were getting more and more freaked out every step we took into the underbelly of Beijing. Finally, after what seemed like forever, but was 10 minutes at the most, we found ourselves at “Leo Hostel II”, also called the Shal Ling Hostel. It was located in the middle of a neighborhood of crumbling Chinese residences that were jammed into a side alleyway off the main alley. The foyer looked like it was taken from an old movie of the Orient, with high ceilings, a large woodcarving, a pond with turtles and goldfish, as well as people sitting on wicker chairs and fanning themselves.

Our room had barren walls and could barely contain the four single beds which were haphazardly arranged in it, two of which creaked every time the person on them moved even an inch. The bathroom had a sink and toilet, with a shower opposite the toilet. There was a drain on the floor for when one used the shower, but the water sprayed everywhere within the small confines of the bathroom. You could literally use the toilet and shower at the same time! The one thing you couldn’t do was flush any toilet paper down the commode, a sign on the wall said to throw it in the wastebasket after you used it. Trudy sat on one of the non-creaky beds and began to cry, completely overwhelmed. We were all tired, hungry, and culture-shocked from our trip into Beijing.

After a while I suggested that we go to the hostel’s restaurant and have dinner, since it was after 8 pm by this point. The restaurant was a quaint little place with a room above it where one could watch a movie or use the internet. Trudy and I ordered hamburgers and fries, since we had been craving Western food after the boat trip and could have used any little connection to home at the moment. What came was literally a “ham” burger, a bun with ham, lettuce, and dressing. It ended up being quite good, even if it was not what we had expected to receive. We ran into Aya, one of the Australian girls we had met on the boat, as we were finishing our food. She was able to commiserate about the surroundings. Trudy felt better after talking with her and we all were feeling much better after eating something, so we returned to our room and went to sleep, exhausted.

Slow Boat to China

2012-05-11T14:05:07Z

I woke around 7 am; the boat was pitching back and forth to a much greater extent than the day before. Someone later told us that the sea is the roughest in the channel that runs between Japan and Korea because of the way the currents mix there. Around 7:30 they started playing elevator music over the intercom system, presumably to wake everyone up. Among the songs was “Let it Snow”, which seemed a little strange. Around 8 they announced it was time for breakfast.

They had a set breakfast with a Chinese dumpling, Chinese bread, and a hard boiled egg. We also got coffee, and I had rice porridge as well. This was one of the better meals that we had aboard the ship. Brennan loved the dumplings and wanted more, but they said it was part of the set and only one set was allowed per person. They did mention, however, that I could buy dumplings for 50 yen a piece, so I purchased three more. We sat next to Teddy, a Japanese man who was on his way to Mongolia. He was a teacher who spent three months at a time in Mongolia teaching Japanese. After this time he then chose one student to accompany him back to Japan where they would undergo more intensive training. At the end of three months, he returned to Mongolia to start this process over again. He, therefore, had taken this journey a number of times before and was very knowledgeable about the trip. He was a very funny man who spoke excellent English and we had a nice time conversing with him.

After breakfast, we returned to the deck to look at the beautiful scenery as well as to get some fresh air. I wasn’t feeling the greatest due the constant rocking that was taking place, but knew that I would probably feel better out on the deck. We were passing a number of mountainous islands and did so for the next several hours. These islands were apparently part of Korea, even though we couldn’t see the mainland from the boat. Then Trudy saw what looked like a ball in the water, but on closer inspection we realized what it really was- a huge jellyfish! We stood and watched jellyfish for a while, there ended up being hundreds of them. Some of them were two feet across; most were brightly colored red or orange. They were most impressive when we saw a side view of them and could see the tentacles as well as the swimming motion that they were making. We called the boys out on deck so they could watch them too. In addition to the jellyfish, we saw beautiful blue fish with yellow tails swimming around. Trudy and Justin sat on the deck in the sun reading their books while I just watched the islands go by. Later, as we were talking with some Australian girls and peering over the side, we saw a small shark in the water.

After a while, they made the announcement it was time for lunch. We still hadn’t quite worked out what was best to eat. For instance, Trudy picked up a plate of what she thought was mushrooms but they ended up being egg yolks which were marinated in a brown sauce. They were good, but a whole plate of them was a little much. We ate lunch with the Australian girls as well as a German student who was taking the long way back home. He had lived in Tokyo for a year and was now going to catch the Trans-Siberia Railway across China and Russia to get home. Everyone that we had met so far on the boat had some adventurous travel story to tell. For instance, the two Australian girls were both traveling alone, one to Vietnam and then Cambodia, the other to China and eventually India. Like us, most of the people who were traveling had just met for the first time on the boat.

After lunch I took a nap. Trudy returned to the deck while the boys played ping pong and went to the public bath. Later, we switched places and I went to the deck with the boys while Trudy napped. I was happy to see that the sea had clamed down considerably as we passed into the Yellow Sea. Soon, there were no more islands in sight, just miles and miles of open water.

At dinner we sat by the German guy once again and were joined by a Japanese student as well. He, like Teddy, was headed to Mongolia, but with a group that was planning to plant trees in the desert. At 8 p.m. Justin wanted to return to the public bath so I went with him. There was a father there with his young son and a few other men as well, all were Japanese, of course. I hadn’t heard that Chinese people were as fond of public baths. At 10 pm, they announced that it was quiet time once again, so we assembled in our cabin and went to sleep.

Your Average Family Trip

2012-05-10T18:17:32Z

By now avid readers will have figured out that I can be a bit cheap. My tendency for frugality had especially showed itself while planning a family vacation through Asia in 2007. We wanted to see China, but an average round trip ticket cost around $900, nearly what I had paid roundtrip between Chicago and Japan, where I had been spending a 7-month sabbatical. To top it off, one-way tickets were even more expensive, since budget airlines were nearly non-existent in Japan. What we really wanted was to start our trip in China, but return to Japan via Southeast Asia. That meant taking a boat to China was really the best option available!

I had figured out that the four of us could all take a boat from Kobe to Tianjin, China, near Beijing, for the price of a single round-trip ticket. The only catch was that the boat would take over two days to reach its destination! I had figured that we were in no particular hurry to get there and that we could always use another adventure in travel- so I had booked us passage aboard the China Express Line leaving from Kobe.

Even though the boat wasn’t set to leave until 11:30 a.m., we wanted to leave the house in plenty of time to find the boat terminal and check in early, so we left the house at quarter to 8. Since we were all dragging a big piece of luggage, along with one carry-on per person, we opted for the downhill walk to the monorail station instead of crossing campus to the Ishibashi train station. This added 700 yen to our trip, but it was well worth avoiding the long stairway down to campus as well as the uphill walk up the brick paths which criss-crossed the campus. I’m cheap, but I’m not that cheap!

Since we arrived in Kobe around 9 am, we decided that we had plenty of time to get breakfast before we headed to the boat. We ate at a quaint little cafe in the train station which was playing American Jazz music at the time. We all had our fill of various baked goods, and the three of us had coffee, while Brennan decided on a “Bloody Orange Smoothie”, which had crushed ice, orange juice, as well as a splash of tomato juice. After breakfast, we walked over to the “Port Liner” train and took it to the dock.

They opened check in for the boat at 10 am, during which I had to show our passports and fill out our embarkation cards. We then checked our baggage in a process that was not unlike the procedure at an airport. We passed through customs and immigration, then walked out onto the dock and saw the boat for the first time. The “Yanjing” was a Chinese boat which made the trip to Tianjin once a week and then had a day off before it made the return voyage. It was a big boat, perhaps 300 feet long, not quite cruise ship size, but large for a ferry, which is what they called had the trip on the internet.

We boarded the ship and checked into our first class cabin. “First Class” meant that we got real (bunk) beds and that there were only 4 – 6 people per room, while “Second Class” slept on the floor on mats with 16 people per room. If I was going to make the family travel to China this way, the least I could do is spring for first class accommodations! We explored the ship while we waited for it to leave. The boat had shared bathrooms as well as a separate shared room for showering. It also had a traditional public bath on its lowest level. There was also a restaurant, as well as various vending machines throughout. On our exploration, we also encountered a T.V. lounge, a smoking lounge, and a “game room”, which consisted of a single ping-pong table, but that was just fine with the boys.

We were on deck at 11:30 when the Yanjing started its engines, blew its whistle, and pulled out to sea. We felt like we should be waving “bon voyage” to someone, just like in the movies, so we waved to some Japanese boys who were playing on a nearby dock- but they didn’t pay any attention to us.

We admired the views of Honshu Island, to our right, as well as Shikoku Island, to our left as we pulled up the straight between the two. We had actually seen some of the same scenery from the train during a trip to Hiroshima, but we welcomed the different perspective that the boat offered. We crossed underneath the longest suspension bridge in the world, the first of three bridges that we would pass underneath that day. Every now and then, they would make announcements in Chinese, then Japanese, and finally (if they deemed them important enough) in English as well. In all, about half of the announcements ended up being given in English.

Soon after we left, they announced that lunch would be served in the restaurant. Being a Chinese boat, they served primarily Chinese food, with an occasional Japanese dish thrown in for good measure. Justin, my oldest son who was 14 at the time, and I picked fish for lunch. It tasted good but was filled with tiny bones which were difficult to pick out. Brennan, 11 then and in his pre-vegetarian days, had ham, which reminded me more of ham hocks, with bones and cartilage throughout. We figured that it might take us a few tries to figure out what was good at the restaurant.

We then spent a few hours on deck, sitting in the sun, and watching the scenery go by. After a series of announcements that they didn’t bother to translate into English, the purser came out to us and told us they were performing a safety drill. We needed to return to our cabin right away, don our life jackets, and meet our designated lifeboat chief in the main lobby. Ten minutes later, as we were still fumbling with our life jackets, the purser popped into our room to show us how to tie them. The people who were assigned to the number 4 lifeboat, after meeting in the lobby, proceeded to the aft deck, where we lined up with everyone else. They then split us up by languages. The man giving the English safety instructions spent 5 minutes telling us about the various alarms on the boat and what to do if we heard them, while the Chinese and Japanese instructions took about 3 times as long. We weren’t sure if they got the same information and it just took longer to say it, or if we just got the pared down version of the talk. After that, we returned the jackets to our room and continued to view the scenery.

Dinner was served at 6, the family had a little more luck finding something that they liked, but I still ended up with an assortment of food that, for whatever reason, they couldn’t eat. Real Chinese food seemed to have a lot more bones, skin, and gristle than we were used to at Americanized Chinese restaurants. After we ate, we returned to deck to watch the sun set over the last piece of the Japanese islands that we would see on our trip, we had made it all the way down the straight and were heading out to sea.

We then decided to hold a family ping-pong tournament, which Justin won by just a few points. Then, everyone was invited back to the restaurant for a talent show. There, 6 of the female crew members took turns singing mostly Chinese songs, although 2 of them were in Japanese. Some of them simply wore their crew uniform, while others dressed the part, the final girl in a silver sparkling mini-skirt with a matching jacket. One girl played traditional music on a large Chinese harp. It was quite the cultural experience, as we left, I commented to the family that you couldn’t get anything like that on a plane!

We took turns taking showers, since we had only one set of toiletries to share between us. Unfortunately, we had checked the suitcases with the towels so we had to use the clothes we were wearing to dry off with. At 10 pm, they announced that everyone should be quiet and should get some sleep. We settled in for the night and were rocked to sleep by the waves.

chocolate cupcakes

2012-02-11T03:27:48Z

martha stewart’s one-bowl chocolate cupcakes, decorated like cats for my friend margaret’s “cat’s pajamas” themed party

they're the cat's pajamas

note: i used vegetable oil because i didn’t have the other fancy kind she suggests. also, this recipe yielded 24 cupcakes for me

“Ingredients

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
3/4 cup warm water
3/4 cup buttermilk
3 tablespoons safflower oil
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners; set aside. Sift together cocoa powder, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl. Add eggs, warm water, buttermilk, oil, and vanilla, and mix until smooth, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides and bottom of bowl to assure batter is well mixed.
Divide batter evenly among muffin cups, filling each 2/3 full. Bake until tops spring back when touched, about 20 minutes, rotating pan once if needed. Transfer to a wire rack; let cool completely.

Cook’s Note

Cupcakes will keep, covered, for up to three days.”

Climbing Kili

2011-12-27T20:53:03Z

12/16

Today was the beginning of our Mt. Kilimanjaro expedenture. We started off at the base of the Machame route around noon with our day packs, walking sticks and hiking boots. We made our way through rainforest vegetation for hours. True to form, it started douwnpouring a few hours in, and I was stupid enough to pack my raingear in a bag that was being carried up the hill by one of fourteen porters. Lucky enough for me, when we stopped to eat our packed lunches, the right porter came sauntering up the path at the right time. My backpack was in a big white bag that he balanced on his head. I was happily protected from the elements soon enough.

Although it rained for most of the five hour hike, it didnt bother me. It reminded me of the Pacific NW. We saw a waterfall, and the trees got noticeably smaller the higher up we climbed. It was so fun, and I was excited to try and make it to the top of “the boob” as someone in our group so elequently dubbed Mt. Kili.

Kili was hidden behind clouds the entire first day, which was good, because on the drive over, seeing Kili so high and steep, I started to freak out. What on earth had I signed up for? I had never climbed a mountain before, and I had no idea how my body would react to the altitude. What a great idea: to test drive my mountain climbing capabilities on the tallest mountain in Africa…

We got to camp around 5:00, sat around eating chocolate, and changing out of our damp clothes. Already, we were cold enough to put on underarmer and sweatshirts. Who knows how we are going to cope with the increasing cold.

We had our first dinner, played card games and stared up at the beautiful starry sky. Whatever was going to happen in the next six days, atleast it was all going to be an adventure.

12/13

Todaz we climbed through a completely different enviornment than what we experienced yesterday. The trees shrunk as the hours passed, marking our progress nicely. The plants were very interesting. There were really odd looking cactuses-like plants. There were more stones than dirt, most of the time. It started pouring about halfway through the climb, so the rocks were pretty slippery. We needed to be extra careful. At one point, we were free climbing sideways on a rock face. Pretty badass if I may say so myself. We got to camp around 1:00 and tried to keep warm as the freezing rain pounded our leaky tents. Finally, the rain stopped and the fog cleared a little bit to show the summit, still days away and so, so high.

We found out over popcorn and tea that this expedition is two days shorter than we had originally thought. Two more days to kill in Northern Tanzania…

The bathrooms are appalling, and I have seen my share of disgusting bathrooms in Tanzania. Just two outhouses that were quite literally full to the brim. Gross.

12/14

Today we climbed through a desert, and the air became colder and colder as time went by. I realized that I am going to be cold for the next few days, and theres really nothing to fix that except spooning with my tentmate in our small, leaky tent. Time to get cozy…

We ate lunch under boulders and watched a fat chipmunk try to attack one of our daypacks.

As we walked, I kept noticing butterscotch candy wrappers dotting the trail. As the days passed I would grow more and more convinced that I was like Hansel and Gretel, following a trail of breadcrumbs home.

I got annoyed when our guide, Bali, tried to tie my shoes for me…seriously?!

We walked over a few river beds, and were quite literally in the clouds for part of the day. I got stuck in my head as the hours passed, wondering how I could possibly be going home in a week.

When we got to camp, my head was pounding from the altitude. We had two more days until the top, and I hoped my body would be able to handle what I was about to put it through.

To compensate for the pain, I sat in my tent, took an Aleve that Pam Held gave me as a going away present, and ate smushed peppermint junior mints from a care package from home. That was probably the lowest moment of the day. I was in a beautiful place, that both blew my mind and caused me physical pain. I wondered why I signed up for something like this. Oh yeah, because I knew it was going to be hard and wanted the challenge.

I truly question my sanity.

12/15

Today was the most gruelling climb as of yet—and not just of the Mount Kili expendenture. It was the hardest climb I have ever experienced. We started the day early, leaving our beautiful campsite and heading towards an impossibly high rock face. And yes, we had to climb hundreds of feet high, on wet rock, up and over that rock face.

About halfway up this free rock climbing experience, I remembered I was afraid of heights. Funny, having this fear and still attempting to climb the tallest mountain in Africa…

When we reached the top of that rock face, everyone was exhausted. We took a little break, walked a little farther and then started to climb a SECOND steep rock face before lunch. No biggie.

I was secretly loving every bit of it.

During the second steep climb, it struck me just how amazing the human body is. We can put it through barely imaginable strains, and it can bounce back for more. I gained a new found respect for my body at least. It was truly amazing to find that when I pushed myself to my imagined physical limit, It was possible to keep going.

At lunch, we were all so tired, and I was pretty cranky. We were higher in elevation, my head and limbs were aching. But we still had hours to go. The last half of the day was agonizing. Although most of it was on a gentle slope upward, my legs were weak and I was so…tired…of…walking.

There was one last steep rock face at the very end of the hike. “After this, we are done,” Bali said. With that in mind, I grimaced through what I THOUGHT would be the last half hour.

Nope. Once we got to the top, we still had another fifteen minutes to go before reaching the camp. I suspected that Bali had some sadistic tendencies.

I was so cranky, I just wanted to curl up in my sleeping bag and forget where I was. It was cold, I was exhausted, and we could see the summit from our campsite and it seemed impossibly far. No way were we getting up in the middle of the night to climb that. I went to bed that night cold and very, very nervous.

12/16

At 11:30pm, Bali woke us up, urging us to get out of our semi-warm and “comfortable” tents. It was time to start our hike to the summit. With only about four hours of sleep, I already wanted to give up. I was cold and oxygen deprived, and it was pitch-dark outside. I was also worried about a guy in our group that wasn’t doing too well in the high altitude.

We started the steep incline to the summit with all our winter gear and headlamps. On a last minute impulse, I grabbed my sleeping bag liner to use as a scarf.

The hike was steep and on a very icy trail. We started out fast with not a lot of breaks, which soon became a problem.

I was out of breath, and the higher we climbed the more nauscious and light-headed I felt. The summit seemed impossibly far away, but our legs kept moving forward. About an hour into the climb, one of our group members had to stop, it was getting to be too much. One of our guides stayed with him, the other kept the rest of us going.

Below we could see lights from the city of Moshi, that seemed to me to be in the shape of a Christmas Tree. As the hours passed, the climb became ridiculously difficult. I asked to take breaks allmost every ten minutes, and when we walked it took all my effort to stay balanced. My body began to wobble a lot, and there were some moments when I thought I might topple down the mountain. My body would be discovered three thousand years in the future. I would be called the Kilimanjaro Ice Mummy, nicknamed “Manji,” by forensic anthropologists.

Our guide, Michael, kept us moving fast. We passed almost every other group, marked by the lights of headlamps, on our way up the mountain. As my condition worsened, Michael took my backpack from me and forced me to eat peanuts and drink pineapple juice. I was worried I would throw it up, but there was no arguing with Michael. I would eat what I was given and LIKE IT.

“Eat,” he would say, “drink.” “Okay, tuende [lets go].”

The word ‘tuende’ pretty much encompassed the theme of the last hike. We would ask to stop, we would fail to catch our breath, and then Michael would say “tuende,” and we would be walking again.

Four hours into the hike, I was almost certain couldn’t make it any further. My will had given out, and although I’ve never fainted before, there’s a first time for everything.

At one point I knew I was becoming slightly delerious when I imagined my little sister Rachel at the summit, holding a plate of sushi for me. I knew it didn’t make any sense, but in that moment anything seemed possible.

Michael noticed my swaying and grabbed my hand to steady me. For the last half hour of the hike, he dragged me upward, letting me buckle over every two minutes from lack of oxygen. I was close to tears and throwing up, and everyone could tell, but Michael would quickly say “tuende.” A little part of me wanted to punch him.

He kept us moving because he wanted us to catch the sunrise at the top. After hiking for six hours, and feeling like I would collapse at any second, I saw the top of a wooden sign, peaking from over the hill we were climbing.

“Is that it?” I asked. Michael stayed quiet and dragged me to the top of the summit.

“Congratulations,” he said with a big smile on his face, and proceeded to kiss me on both cheeks. I started laughing and crying almost hysterically. We had made it to the top. We were in pain, oxygen and sleep deprived, sick and grumpy, but it was all worth it. The weight of the accomplishment, and the incredible beauty of the summit at sunrise was worth it all.

We had made it to Stella point, but the highest part of the summit was 100 meters away.

“Are you staying here?” Michael asked me, and I shook my head. If I had gotten this far…

It was a slow and long 100 meters. In fact, I’m pretty sure Michael lied about the whole 100 meters thing. About halfway through I gave up and told the others to go ahead, I would watch the sunrise from where I was.

I didn’t notice that Michael had stopped to wait with me. After a couple minutes he said, “okay, tuende.”

“what?”

“tuende”

“Michael, okay, but if I throw up it’s your fault.” He laughed, and urged me onward. Sure enough, a couple minutes later my dinner from the night before odorned the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. Michael was there to make sure I didn’t stumble into my previous stomach contents, and then promptly said, “you will feel better now, tuende!” I did feel better, but that didn’t make Michael any less relentless.

We walked to the highest peak of Kili, and in Africa, Uhuru Point. The sun started rising, spreading shades of red and pink along the skyline. Apparently right before I wobbled to the finish, a couple had a wedding ceremony at the peak. A short one that is. The new husband shouted out, “Now I’m married!” and everyone at the peak clapped.

When we made our way back to the first part of the summit, there was a nice surprise waiting for us. The fourth group member, who had stopped early into the hike, had made it to the summit! He was sitting on the ground, looking delerious, but clearly thrilled for having made it through the hardest climb. I think we were all very emotional in the moment. I definetely couldn’t control my own tears and laughter. Life was just absurdely beautiful right then.

The way down was easier than the way up, but the trail was slippery and my legs were so weak. I slipped too many times to count, partially from my own sheer exhaustion. The porter that was guiding me down the mountain kept me moving when I wanted to sit down forever. I had made it to the top of Kili, I didn’t care if I became an ice mummy.

My own will couldn’t force my body to keep moving. I had simply pushed it farther than ever before, and it needed a rest. Finally, the porter put my arm around his shoulder, and his around mine. We basically flew down the mountain like skiers without skiis.

Any other time I might have refused help—prefering independence to dependence.Not to say I’m gonna make a complete 180 degree personality change, I’m always gonna like my independence. But in that moment, I didn’t want to do it all alone.

Maybe I would have gotten down that mountain fine, slipping every five steps or so. But acccepting a helping hand made the descent just a bit easier. And being as exhausted as I was, I had to admit that relinquishing control of my life for a few hours was nice.

Maybe summit day had a lesson built into it just for me. Maybe it’s okay to be dependent on others sometimes. Sometimes people can lead you where you want to go.

It was a relief to be dragged back to camp, told to sleep, woken up, and told to eat, and finally told to pack and to keep moving.

Any other day, if someone insisted on tying my shoes for me, I would have backed away immediately. But in the state beyond sheer exhaustion, I found myself capable of accepting help.

We walked down the mountain, for about five hours. Our limbs ached more as the vegetation grew taller. We walked through what looked like Arizona, and then Rainforest, to our campsite. As the sun set on the mountain, all was well. The next day we would walk down off the mountain. But this night was reserved for a quiet celebration of life and living.

Home Sweet Home

2011-12-24T19:25:00Z

After 30 hours of travelling, I have finally made it home. The journey began with two days straight of rain in Dar (the biggest rainfall they have had in 50 years). As a result, many roads were flooded and closed down. I almost had a panic attack waiting for my driver to come pick me up from the airport. After 40 minutes he still had not shown up! I finally decided to call another taxi, but had no idea how long it would take him to get there, especially since many of the roads were out of commission. He drove like mad (going 60mph in Dar is not usually recommended) and we finally reached the airport only an hour and a half before my plane departed. I met up with Chelsea and we were both relieved to finally have gotten to the airport. It turns out that it took Chelsea three hours to get to the airport because of traffic. It was such a relief when we finally got on the plane. We were so excited!...especially for Swiss Airline food! It sounds crazy, but both Chelsea and I had been dreaming of the day when we would get wonderful airplane food. Now I don’t know if many of you have travelled internationally before, but the food is excellent, nothing like the fake stuff they serve you on domestic American flights. We got cannelloni, warm rolls, fresh cheese, vegetables, and carrot cake. For breakfast they served us yogurt, warm croissants, and orange juice. When we got to Zurich, it was freezing cold! We could see our breath walking into the airport! We had a 6 hour layover and managed to kill time in the business class lounge (they didn’t check our tickets so we got in even though we were flying economy). We watched the news, read our books, and ate lots of free food! The next flight was 10 hours long and I managed to watch a ton of movies and TV shows, finish a book, and sleep a little. Surprisingly, I wasn’t really tired on the flight. When we finally touched down in America, it was almost surreal. I remember thinking that it was the first time in a long time that I was able to see real houses in the city…no mud huts or shacks. Chelsea and I headed off to customs and ended up waiting in line for at least a half an hour. We were really excited about the water fountains in the airport. We could finally drink water out of the fountain without getting sick! I met up with my family in the O’Hare airport and we drove home, getting there at about 8:00 pm. I was hungry and went into the pantry only to be bombarded by choices. I got out a bagel at first and starting toasting it, but then realized I wanted crackers, and then saw the cereal. I couldn’t decide what I wanted. There were so many choices! I settled on a bowl of cereal and found that it was a lot more sugary than I remembered. In fact, I have found that about a lot of things here. I ate raw carrots yesterday and thought they tasted like candy. And things that I would normally love, like salad dressing and milk, don’t seem to do hardly anything for me. In fact, I haven’t been able to finish a whole glass of milk yet. I think I am a little lactose-intolerant from not having milk for 4 months. Other observations about being home: I have to constantly remind myself that I am no longer in Africa when riding in a car. My first thought out of the airport was that I had to pee, and that I could just get out and go pee on the side of the road. Hah, also, I have to remind myself to put on my seatbelt. Seatbelts are hardly ever present in Tanzania. I am loving the fact that there is warm water. Having clean water to wash your face with and brush your teeth is a wonderful thing. I have already taken two baths and they have been amazing. Also, I LOVE washing machines. I was so excited to get home and wash all of my clothes. So far, the culture shock hasn’t hit me too much. Of course, I do notice differences between the two countries, but I haven’t been too shaken up yet. I’m still adjusting to the time difference. I almost lost it yesterday after waking up at 4:30 am and being up for the entire day. By 7:00 I had crashed and could not function. And last night I managed to wake up every 2 hours. But, these things will all come back with time. Lately, I have been doing a lot of cooking to make up for all the months when I wasn’t able to cook. I’m sure I’ll think of more things that are different here than in Africa as time goes on, but for now, I am just going to relax and enjoy the holidays. Thank you Tanzania for all of the memories. It has been absolutely wonderful, and I know that this is an experience I will remember for the rest of my life.

A Program in Ruins

2011-12-24T00:24:46Z

Wednesday rolled around and I was still in denial about the program having ended four days prior. Shaye, Abby and Liz had recently left for home. That still left ten students in Tanzania, three of which were on Kilimanjaro and three of which were now busy showing visiting family and friends around. Undaunted, I took Brennan and the four who were still hanging around campus on another “field trip” to see the ruins at Mbwamaji as well as the Southern Beaches.

A few weeks before this, I had traveled with Brennan, Hani, and Lauren to investigate the remains of a similar 16th century Arab settlement, the Kunduchi ruins, near the Northern Beaches. This had been my fourth trip to Kunduchi but my first visit to the ruins. I had wanted to stop by them on each of my three previous visits but it had never worked out. The first time I was alone and took to heart the advice of every guide book I had owned saying never to go there by yourself due to muggings that were known to have occurred there. Other beach areas were notorious for the same thing: the stretch along Ocean Drive downtown, as well as Coco Beach/Toure Drive on the Peninsula, and I tended to heed these warnings (ok, I had walked alone along Ocean Drive in 2010 during my visit to the ACM program but I had learned a lot since then). My second and third visits to Kunduchi benefited from our safety in numbers but each time we were in a rush to get to an offshore island, Bongoyo and Mbudya, respectively, and were then too exhausted to care upon our return from the islands. Our first Sunday back in Dar following the field program had thus been a perfect time to take a core group of “tomb raiders” to visit the Kunduchi ruins.

That afternoon, Brennan and I met Hani and Lauren on the beach near the Marine Science Center of UDSM. This beach was just a beautiful and pristine as that which fronted the adjoining Kunduchi Beach Hotel but had the added advantage that you wouldn’t be thrown off of it if you were not some high roller. We swam for a bit near where we had put in each time we had taken a motorized dhow from this location, but soon noticed that the belongings we had stowed on a sandbar were soon to be engulfed by the incoming tide. We either had to more our stuff the 100 yards to the beach proper and continue swimming or pick it up and head for the ruins- so we agreed on the latter undertaking.

The ruins were found a quarter of a mile north of the turn off for the Science Center in the middle of a deserted clearing. It looked like someone had recently built a washroom near the site, perhaps representing the very beginnings of some tourism-devoted infrastructure, but it was unclear if this was an up-and-coming effort or if it had been simply abandoned. The first ruins that were apparent to us were the “pillar tombs” dating from the 18th-19th centuries that filled the clearing. We had seen similar tombs in Kaole, south of Bagamoyo, many containing an enclosed cement structure similar to a personal mausoleum, topped with a stone pillar. Hani took some rubbings of the Arabic writing on these tombs, while I took some pictures (we later had Nidal translate the Arabic for us). Just northwest of the clearing we found some less elaborate but much more recent graves, some had apparently been used quite recently, still containing names written in Arabic that we guessed may have belonged to the descendents of the original settlers. The last thing we found was the mosque itself, reportedly dating from the late 15th or early 16th centuries, and typically representing the first structure built by settlers to the area. The thing that interested Hani, our budding archaeologist, the most about the Kunduchi ruins was the intricate carvings as well as the presence of blue and white Chinese porcelain built into the structures there. The porcelain may have indicated the relative wealth of a tomb’s owner and clearly demonstrates the expansive trade network that existed at this time.

We continued north from the ruins until we reached a small river, whereby we turned and walked back along the beach until we returned to our original meeting place. Along the way, we came across the largest jellyfish I had ever seen washed up on the beach, a good sized fish was still wrapped in its tentacles. Farther on, we found a puffer fish being pushed by the waves which had also somehow met with an untimely end. Now that the tide had mostly come in, we swam some more before hopping on a dalla dalla and heading for home.

Our latest excursion, therefore, was somewhat of a comparative study. Mbwamaji, or “dog water” was the name that Arab traders gave to their settlement that was established around the same time as Kunduchi near the site of Gezaulole, said to be one of the oldest Swahili settlements in Tanzania. I also wanted to compare the Northern Beaches which we had frequented with those found south of Dar, which I surprisingly had not yet been to during my five months in Tanzania. Carla and Zoe joined the four of us experienced tomb raiders for the trip, which involved a short ferry ride from Kivukoni Front in downtown Dar. I had seen Kivukoni dalla dallas in Ubungo but had never boarded one. It didn’t look like the six of us were going to board one on Wednesday morning, either, at the rate we were going. We had allowed three of them to pass us by which we were confident that there was no way we could cram ourselves onto but we soon came to the realization that they weren’t going to get any less crowded anytime soon, so cram we did. It amazes me that, after five months, I was still setting records for most crowded dalla dalla ride ever!

The six minute ferry ride across the bay cost the equivalent of six cents and transported the rider a world away from the craziness of Dar. Although Kigamboni, the ferry terminal on the other side of the bay was just as busy and built up as parts of Dar, the area just outside of the ferry seemed like countryside. Since it took 90 minutes or more to drive around the bay in order to get to the area in question, it felt more akin to the other locales we had been to that were this far outside of the city- Pugu Hills, for instance, or the area surrounding Bagamoyo. We expected that it might be somewhat difficult to find a Gezaulole-bound dalla dalla from the ferry but this didn’t end up being the case. Other than going the wrong way (left) at a fork in the road so that we didn’t end up at the main dalla dalla stand right away, things went fairly smoothly, and our slight miscalculation was easily remedied. As we walked into the lot, an unmarked bus stopped and asked where we were headed. Normally, I tried to avoid answering this type of question at all costs so as not to enter into some private hire relationship with a dalla dalla crew, but this time we fessed up right away. The driver assured us that he was, indeed, headed in our direction before he backed into a parking spot in order to load with passengers. I was encouraged to hear the conductor calling out “Geza,” as we waited for the bus to leave- it seemed like they really had been headed there after all.

About 30 minutes later, the guy sitting next to me in the back of the bus asked me where we were headed so I showed him the sheet of paper where I had copied instructions to get to Mbwamaji. Moments later, he had somehow enrolled a man who was sitting in the very front of the bus to get off at the correct stop with us in order to guide us into the desired village. The main landmark I had been watching for was a gravel road branching off to the left with a sign-post for “Kim’s Kampground.” We passed this road and continued for perhaps another mile before “front man” told us it was time to disembark as “back man” bid us farewell at that point. As front man led us down a path amidst traditional mud dwellings with thatched roofs, I once again had a strong feeling of déjà vu. It was like Alexander was leading us on a short cut to Pugu Hills again, except that we had 6 people in tow this time instead of just Brennan and me. Soon we entered a small village where front man handed us off to one of his friends, who promised to take us the rest of the way. This young man, who didn’t look as if he was much older than the college students, introduced himself as “Black”.

Black spoke little English so we explained to him in broken Swahili that we were looking for the Mbwamaji mosque. He seemed to understand as he continued to lead us in the direction of the beach, where he soon pointed out the tiny hamlet of present day Mbwamaji, along with its decidedly modern looking mosque. We tried to explain that we were actually looking for the ruins of an ancient mosque but no one amongst us could remember the Swahili words for “old”, “ancient”, or “ruins”. Finally, as we walked down the beach heading back in the direction of Kigamboni, Hani remembered that he had a guidebook with him that had the word for ruins printed in it. When we finally started asking about magofu, a look of realization passed over Black’s face and he guided us for another quarter mile or so up shore before heading into the nearby underbrush. There, we finally came across the goal that we had been seeking- the ruins of ancient Mbwamaji.

Unlike at Kunduchi, there was no clearing surrounding the ruins, they were interspersed among various overgrown trees, bushes, and shrubs. The ruins also seemed to be less well preserved than those at Kunduchi, consisting of mostly crumbling foundations with no discernable pillar tombs associated with them. It was unclear whether we had stumbled across the remains of the 16th century mosque or the slave trading quarters associated with the same period, but it was nevertheless intriguing to explore the area. As we readied ourselves to go swimming, Black looked like he was hoping to be our guide for the long-haul. He took off his shirt, waded into the water, and was clearly planning on waiting for us until we were through. Since we had already seen the ruins and were fairly confident that we could find our way back ourselves, I turned to Brennan for help in terminating Black’s employment with us. As I handed Black some money, Brennan came up with the Swahili for “Thank you for showing us around, we can find our way back ourselves.” Hurray for 6 weeks of intensive language training!

Unfortunately, the swimming did not go as well for us as it had at the Northern Beaches. Wading in, I stepped on something that felt like a pine cone but, upon further inspection, I brought a black sea urchin up to the surface. I soon realized that I was in a virtual minefield of sea urchins and, despite how shallow the water was, wading was out of the question at this point. Then, as I paddled out of sear urchin territory, I felt an intense pain up and down my arm which extended from my wrist to my elbow. As I returned to shore, I realized that I must have brushed up against a jellyfish. Lauren was back at the tide pools watching more jellyfish whose brothers-in-arms had managed to sting most of our group by this point. One consolation was that it probably could have ended up worse as Lauren soon came across a blue Portuguese man-o-war close to the shore where we had swum. Our embattled crew soon regrouped and headed farther north up the beach. Another quarter mile from the site of the ruins, we came across the Islamic Beach Club, which we then cut through in order to reach the gravel road that we had first seem on the dalla dalla. Another half mile traveling north on this road brought us back to the “Kim’s Kampground” sign.

As we flagged down a passing dalla dalla, however, Carla and Zoe made it known that they were planning to take a piki piki back to the ferry terminal. Of all the forms of transport available to us in Tanzania, even I had shied away from the dreaded piki piki and had managed to keep the students off of them as well as far as I knew. Piki piki is the Swahili word for motorcycles; these were reportedly the up-and-coming form of transport in Dar due to the increase in traffic as well as the price of gasoline. Just as the introduction of the bijaj had significantly cut into the taxi business by undercutting their prices by 50%, piki pikis were now doing the same thing to the bijajs. Procuring this transport was relatively simple- one flagged down a passing cycle and then rode behind the driver to one’s destination.

It was at this point that I had a startling revelation- there was actually very little I could do to dissuade the students from riding on a piki piki. After all, I was no longer ACM’s resident director of Tanzania 2011- I was just some guy traveling around Tanzania. Also, this wasn’t really a field trip we were on- it was just some friends spending the day together. It was this revelation that helped me to climb aboard my ferry-bound dalla dalla, leaving this particular pair of students to their own devices. They ended up being just fine- if there was ever a place to take a piki piki, it was the relatively deserted streets south of Kigamboni.

I thought of these students the day before I left Tanzania as I wandered alone through country roads near Makongo. I had ridden the lying dalla dalla there once again in order to prove something to myself. I had always assumed that the mis-labeled bus traveled down the gravel road from Ardhi U. to Bagamoyo Road, before turning left and continuing on to Bagamoyo. Looking at a map, I had confirmed that there was indeed a road which connected these two landmarks. Had we stopped just short of Bagamoyo Road? Did we really need to ride the 35 minute trip back to Mwenge, or could we have simply walked to the road in question in order to catch the correct dalla dalla? It’s stupid questions like this that I obsess over- sorry. After riding back to Makongo and walking for an hour in what I thought was the direction of the ocean, I had finally proven to myself that I was actually nowhere near Bagamoyo Road. The dalla dalla had apparently wrapped around campus in a northwesterly direction instead of heading due east as I had expected it to. After walking around these country roads in increasingly the wrong direction, I was exceedingly hot and tired. As I passed by a house with a piki piki parked outside, I headed up the driveway and hired the owner to take me back in the direction of campus.

As I gripped tightly to this complete stranger while riding on the back of his motorcycle through the dirt roads which wound through the village of Changanikeni, I thought of something the students and I had discussed concerning our imminent return to the United States. We realized that we would be asked “So, how was Africa?” again and again, mostly by people who were actually looking for no more than a one sentence answer. How could we even begin to cram all of our many experiences into some pat answer? We had thought about it and had actually come up with an appropriate sentence to use on the people who asked us that anticipated question. We would simply reply, “It makes for a good story…”

Leaving Tanzania

2011-12-21T09:58:00Z

Well this is it. I don’t know if I thought this day would ever come, but it’s finally here. I leave to go back to America at 10:10 pm tonight. It’s crazy to think that I can now officially say that I’ve “studied abroad in Africa”. It seems like just yesterday that we were arriving here in Dar and having our first orientation. It’s only been 11 days since the program has ended and already I miss everyone. It’s hard to go from seeing everyone 24/7 to not seeing them at all. I think we are all going to suffer withdrawal from each other eventually. We helped the Godde’s leave the other day and it dawned on me that it really is time to go. I think I am finally ready. No more bottled water, rice for every meal of the day, or squat toilets. However, I will miss the wonderful fruit, the people, and of course, the weather. Today and yesterday have unfortunately been rainy, but other than that, it has been beautiful here. Highs are usually around 90 with tons of humidity, and the sun is always shining. I stayed with my parents last night at the Whitemark Hotel and it was nice to be spoiled for once (air conditioning, a real bed, a flush toilet). But at the same time, it was hard to see them go. Our planes arrive in Chicago at the same time, but they have a 20 hour layover in Turkey and had to depart Dar earlier than me. I missed my parents, of course, during the course of the program, but I think that now it is so hard to watch them leave after spending so much time with them. I’m excited to go home, but also slightly nervous. I’ve heard that the transition home is sometimes difficult, only because people don’t expect it to be difficult at all. I can’t even imagine having a pantry or drinking water from the tap. Also, there is a small little holiday just around the corner called Christmas. Of all times to be going home, I get to come home right in the middle of Christmas. It’s going to be crazy. Thankfully, I have done all my shopping here in Tanzania, but part of me doesn’t even want to have Christmas. I don’t really need anything (well, except new underwear since all of mine is being thrown away here in Tanzania) and I don’t really want to be around a ton of people obsessing over trivial gifts. On the other hand, I am excited to be with my extended family, and to reunite with many of my friends. I’m not sure if winter break will go by fast or not. I fear not having enough time to reconnect with everyone. I am also afraid that the busy American lifestyle will be a little hard for me to cope with. For 4.5 months I have been here in Tanzania where everything and everyone moves so slowly. They don’t have to be anywhere or do anything. Yet Americans seem exactly the opposite-always going and always doing. I am sitting here typing this in the cafeteria. I have just eaten my last meal here (rice and beans…plus there were a few rocks in there). It’s going to be strange adapting to a new eating pattern. Right now I am so used to eating three HUGE meals (you should see the amount of rice they give you here) and never snacking, however, I’m sure that is about to change.

Overall, I’m so glad that I did this program. I just can’t get over the fact that I’ve spent four months here. It certainly doesn’t feel like it. I have met a wonderful group of young individuals and have shared some meaningful conversations with many of them. I know that I have definitely changed and grown as a person, however, I think it will take some time before I actually recognize these changes. Eventually, I’ll have to reread my blog from the beginning, in order to get a sense of who I was before I came. I thank you all for taking the time to follow me in Africa. I have thoroughly enjoyed all of the comments and e-mails. Happy holidays to all,

Erin

(Look for one more post after I return to the states)

Pemba

2011-12-19T18:38:18Z

12/3

Just like a vacation that seems to end before it ever began, the last leg of this semester is blowing by like a gust of wind. Last week I thought time was passing SO slow. Moments are slow, but days go so fast!

Right off the boat in Pemba, we boarded two small boats with our guides and headed towards a sandbar for a late lunch. We snorkeled and swam as the sun started to get low in the sky. We sailed back to our hotel as it started getting dark.

We had a dinner of seafood and tropical fruit juice outside on the veranda overlooking the Indian Ocean. I took my first shower in two weeks that wasnt out of a bucket, and slept the most I have in a long time. It was so nice to be out of the smoggy heat that is Dar es Salaam.

12/4

Today we had a magical breakfast of fruit and eggs on the same veranda as dinner, and then got on the boats again. We sailed to a small island off the coast of Pemba and spent the whole day there. I used up most of it lying in the shade. I was so tired and slightly ill with a cold and a likely case of pink eye. My laziness ended up serving me well, because I was one of the lucky few who didn’t get burnt in the intense African sun.

We had lunch: rice, beans and fish sauce. Then we went hiking around the island, exploring caves that have religious significance to natives of Pemba. Apparently people used to contact ghosts, but no one knows how to do that anymore.

On the hike, we passed a thatched shelter with some make-shift beds of sticks and straw. This was for fishermen who spend a week or so fishing off of this island. All I could think about was how likely the fishermen were to get mosquito bites and thus Malaria, sleeping out in the open like that.

After the hike, we got back in our boats and headed home, snorkeling a little bit along the way.

The sun set slowly over the water as we made our way home—leaving the sky in ever darkening shades of pink, yellow and blue.

12/5

We started the day off with another breakfast on the veranda. It was back on the boats for a looong, hoootttt boat ride to a sunken ship. The ride there was almost unbearable. I had to wrap myself in cloth to prevent from getting burnt. Someone on the boat compared me to the Virgin Mary. Well, I’m not burnt, so it did the trick.

When we finally got to the ship, it was a relief to jump in the water. It was a little spooky at first, snorkeling around a sunken ship. But it got progressively cooler as the minutes passed. The ship, a big guy, met its fate when it got caught at a wall of sand in the sixties. The crew swam all the way to shore, only to be told by a policeman that if they stepped on shore they would be arrested. Apparently there was a revolution going on at the time, and the crew was on the “wrong” side. So, they had to swim to the next island over, which wasn’t too far, but was still bad luck.

The ship itself looked like it was smashed to smithereens that day. I could pick out a mast, a steering wheel, an anchor and a crows nest in all the wreckage. I even got to stand on the side of the ship because it was tipped over at such an angle that it almost graced the surface of the ocean.

The fish swimming in the make shift coral reef were stunningly beautiful. And there were so many in one place! The new fad of sinking ships to create coral reefs is obviously a great idea—it works wonderfully.

We headed back to the hotel for lunch. Then we piled into Pemba’s version of a dala dala to find some ‘flying foxes,’ but we didn’t end up finding any. Instead, we stumbled across a soccer game. I watched for a little while, but got bored and walked back early to our hotel with some of the others. The walk was so beautiful. with tropical plants, farm paddies, cows and mud and stick houses. I decided I liked Pemba more than Zanzibar. Pemba is so much more relaxed, quiet and peaceful.

After dinner we watched a dance show, put on just for us in the backyard of the hotel. Of course, we got pulled out of our plastic lawn chairs to dance around the fire at almost every song. It was so much fun! Then, the dancers changed outfist and performed a voodoo ceremonyfor us. It was one of the wildest, most fascinating things I have ever witnessed. The dancers painted their faces white, put on colored grass skirts and then danced and chanted until one of them fell into a trance. The dancer would immediately change demeanor, becoming more and more wild in their jerky movements, and wide wide eyes.

A few times the possessed dancer would fall violently to the ground at my feet, howling and breathing in a rugged, wild way. The other dancers would crowd around them and talk them in swahili, seemingly persuading the demon to leave the body of the dancer.

At one point, the possessed dancer grabbed me from my chair and made me dance with them around the fire, and then led me back to my seat. It all happened so fast.

“Pemba was known for its voodoo in the olden days,” one of the hotel staff said after the show.”But not now, we only pretend, we only do it for show now.” Still, it was one of the coolest performances I have ever seen.

12/6

We woke up early and had a rushed breakfast before loading all our luggage into a dala dala and heading to the ferry dock. We took the MV Skagit back to the main island of Zanzibar. That boat was one last taunting reminder that home is thousands of miles and more than two weeks away.

Compassion Child

2011-12-19T13:58:22Z

My mother sponsors a child through Compassion International. I realized after coming to Tanzania that it is not unusual here to “sponsor” someone to go to school by paying for their requisite fees. A couple of the students decided to do this on an informal basis for some children living near Olasiti. We wanted to visit our family’s sponsored child while we were living nearby but CI requires visits to be arranged months in advance in order to perform background checks on all visitors. Since it would have been hard to commit to a particular day while the ACM program was still in operation, I had scheduled the first weekday after the program ended as a time for our visit to Athulman, our sponsored child.

The official end came on Friday, Dec. 9. The students gave their final poster presentations at 2 pm and we all met at 7 pm at Addis in Dar for one last celebratory dinner together. Afterwards, everyone met at my house to toast each other and, as the clock struck midnight, to take part in a big group hug while we all sang Bob Dylan’s “Rock Me Mamma” for some inexplicable reason. That would be the last time we would all be gathered in one place. Most students were escorted to their homestays around 12:30 am by our guards, while Nidal and the group who were planning to climb Kilimanjaro spent the night. No one at our house ended up getting much sleep that night. By 4:30 am, Erin had returned from picking up her family at the airport and was knocking on our door looking for a place to hang out until breakfast with her host mother rolled around. The mountaineers (Zach, Chelsea, Siri, and her brother, Jents) woke up around that time and within an hour had left for Ubungo to take a bus to Moshi. By 11 am, the Franksons had returned from breakfast and arranged to serve an assortment of holiday hors d’oeuvres. They had brought many of the things we had been missing most from the States: M&Ms, scotcheroos, chocolate chip cookies, “puppy chow”, candy canes, and, of course- cheese, cheese, and more cheese. There were five kinds of cheese served with crackers that day. All 13 of the remaining students attended “Cheese Fest 2011”, and the Franksons had not forgotten the “Kili Kids”, as we called them, as they had sent them on their way with goodie bags of their own. After that, things went on much like they had before the program’s end. Sure, Colleen and Jen had flown home on Saturday evening, and Nidal left on Sunday afternoon, but that still left 10 students in the general vicinity that spent much of their time hanging out at our house enjoying some of the few ceiling fans on campus.
The goal on Monday was to meet Talitha, CIs local representative, at the Bagamoyo dalla dalla stand at 9 am to begin our visit to see Athulman. We were soon to find that, no matter how long one has lived in Tanzania, it always retains the ability to pull a few surprises on you. Trudy had not slept well Sunday night and woke up feeling ill on Monday, so she had decided to stay at home. Brennan, for his part, was running late- so we didn’t get out the door until 7:20 am. Since we were behind schedule, I suggested that we catch the Bagamoyo dalla dalla at Ardhi University instead of going all the way into Mwenge. After all, I had regularly seen Bagamoyo-Makumbusho busses going past the mall and turning up a gravel road near the private university which was adjacent to UDSM. I reasoned that these must take a slightly different route than those we had taken straight from Mwenge, much like the campus busses were a variant of the direct Mwenge-Ubungo dalla dallas. At 7:40 am we boarded the bus in question, after walking to our stop on campus and taking a dalla dalla to Ardhi. The vehicle was already packed with people when we got on and it continued to load as we climbed into the hills. When it came time to pay, the conductor asked me something in Swahili that I took to mean “where are you planning on getting off?” “Bagamoyo,” I replied. “Bagamoyo,” he repeated incredulously as a few people on the bus let out a slight laugh. This wasn’t a good sign. The conductor asked me something else, to which I had to turn to Brennan for help. “He wants to know if you planning on going and coming back on this bus,” he translated. “No, just going,” I tried to tell him. Come to find out, the bus we were on did not go to Bagamoyo, it went to Makongo. It didn’t actually go to Makumbusho either, for that matter, as it had originated in Mwenge.

Now, I had seen an occasional stray dalla dalla that, for some reason or another, had decided to run a different route than what was printed on the front. In every case, the conductor would call out the alternate endpoint, making sure people knew that his particular bus was running a different route than usual. This was the first that I had heard of an entire bus route that was run using the same mis-labeled busses. We stayed on in Makongo, where a man who spoke decent English got on and sat next to me. “You’ll have to ride back to Mwenge,” he told me, “I’ll show you which busses go to Bagamoyo.” I actually knew what such busses looked like already- they looked exactly like the one I was on! “This bus says Bagamoyo,” I pointed out. “It’s a new route,” he replied, as if that explained everything. We finally arrived in Mwenge at 8:40, a full hour after we had climbed aboard the lying bus. So much for cutting some time off our trip!

I had called Talitha from Makongo to let her know we would be running very late. We finally arrived in Bagamoyo at 10:10 am. Once we had met up with Talitha, we took a bijaj to a very familiar location. I hadn’t realized that the school that Athulman attended was run by the Anglican church, through whose door David Livingston famously passed. There, we were introduced to the staff and were told about the mission of the school, which had 220 children- 12 of which, they were quick to point out, were still in need of sponsorship. They also told me that, in the five years since the school has been in existence, only one other sponsor has been able to visit the program. We felt pretty honored to be included in this number. The staff informed me that Athulman had unfortunately been home sick for the past few days and that we would have to visit him at his home. While we sat there, the director of the center handed me Athulman’s personal file containing his vital statistics, grades, as well as medical information, and then sat there patiently, waiting for me to look through it. Coming from America, it felt a little weird leafing through his file, but I didn’t want to be rude so I went through the motions of looking through it.

What I really wanted to know wouldn’t be found in said file- the thing I was most interested in was what kind of kid Athulman really was. I was secretly hoping that he wouldn’t turn out to be an insufferable brat- as I thought this, I pictured the kids in Olasiti who would regularly put large tortoises in the middle of the road for pure entertainment purposes (we rescued a number of them- the tortoises, not the kids) as well as the kids who had asked us for handouts for 26 straight days in the field, never being deterred by the score of previous refusals. Since we wrote to Athulman from America on a regular basis, I knew that it would be hard to pretend to like him in future letters if we ended up despising the kid. After I finished with his file, it was time to finally meet Athulman in person.

The director then asked me if we wanted to walk or take a taxi to which I replied that I was happy to walk. The four of us: Brennan, the director, Talitha, and I thus set off on the 20 minute walk to Athulman’s house. On the way, we passed the school building where classes were held and stopped to inspect it. As we continued, the road looked more and more familiar to me- it was the same road I had accidently taken the students down as we looked for our second lunch establishment on our first visit to Bagamoyo. We stopped after about 15 minutes to buy some water. Talitha was sweating profusely in the 90 degree heat and looked as if she might not make it. Maybe I should have opted for a taxi for her sake but it was a little late at this point. We saw a store with water displayed in a cooler but the director thought that we would prefer Kilimanjaro water over Uhai, so we went to the adjacent shop. Sure enough, they had Kilimanjaro but, as the shop owner was handing it to us, I asked, “baridi?” No, it was not indeed baridi- as they sold it at ambient temperature. It was not uncommon in Tanzania to receive warm water or pop unless you specifically asked for it to be cold. I don’t consider myself a water connoisseur, but even if I were I think I would prefer cold run-of-the-mill water to fancy warm water. We finally settled on a cold Uhai.

Athulman’s apartment was a little farther down the road than we had gone on that trip in which we had gotten a bit lost. The building sat back from the road so that it had a gravel space in front about the size of a parking lot, even though there were no cars parked out front. Athulman and his mother were waiting for us on the front stoop- I noticed that he seemed small for 11 as he politely shook my hand. His mother was also slight of build and could have passed as his older sister if I didn’t know any better. Inside, the individual apartment doorways were each covered with a curtain so people could presumably keep their doors open to stay cool without sacrificing their privacy. From the start, I noticed that the director was calling the child Athulmani, even though the official documentation had lacked the “i”. This did not seem uncommon in Tanzania as Paulina had always referred to me as Jamesi. We gave Athulmani some gifts, which consisted of a new backpack, crayons, markers, notebooks, and coloring books. He seemed genuinely glad to receive them, smiling broadly as he looked though the backpack filled with gifts.

Athulmani spoke very little English but, between the staff and Brennan, we were able to communicate fairly effectively. When asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, Athulmani said that he would like to become president of Tanzania. The power went out while we were talking so that the small oscillating fan which adorned the room (along with a bed, couch, and a loveseat), ground to a whining halt. “If you become president, I want you to find a way to keep the electricity on at all times,” I told him. Athulmani then showed us what he had purchased with the birthday money that my mother had sent him. He had bought a periwinkle bicycle which he kept in the hallway outside his apartment that he used to ride to school instead of walking both ways. When it came time to leave, Athulmani’s mother thanked us profusely for our family’s sponsorship and I told her that she was very welcome. The best news of all is that Athulmani seems to be genuinely a great kid that I don’t even have to pretend to like.

After our visit concluded, I called Hani and Lauren, who were just arriving in Bagamoyo and who planned to spend the next 24 hours in town. We agreed to meet for lunch and I suggested the Travelers’ Lodge, nearby the Anglican church, since I had read that last year’s ACM program had eaten lunch there during their visit. By the time Brennan and I arrived, the two students has already ordered a water to drink but, as we perused the menu, our enthusiasm for the place began to wane considerably. The average lunch entrée cost the equivalent of $12 and, while this might not sound terrible to the average American, it, like the price of the water was about three times the normal going rate. When the drink was gone, we all agreed to find a cheaper venue. We therefore went in search of the “Smoke House Stop” that had at least half a dozen signs pasted around town advertising “the best hamburger in town”, “homemade banana milkshakes”, and, best of all- “non-bacterial ice.” Unfortunately, once we had located this place adjacent to the fish market we realized that all that was left of it was a hollowed out shell of a building with a collapsed thatch roof- it had obviously been closed for some time. Next, we returned to the cobblestone streets of Bagamoyo’s “stone town” and spied a sign with a picture of a succulent roasted chicken, a helping of prawns, as well as a hamburger that, as far as we knew, may have now been a contender for the best one in town. We inquired inside what kind of food they were serving for lunch and became more than a bit disappointed to learn that none of the items featured on their sign were actually being served. Apparently, the only items on the menu were fries and pilau, spiced rice. Since we were currently in the mood for either of these, we ordered some pop and were soon on our way to our fourth restaurant.

It turns out that fourth time was a charm- we found a restaurant near the artists’ market that actually served their advertised food, and at reasonable prices to boot. I ordered pizza and Brennan had prawns wrapped in chapatti. Over lunch, we agreed that Brennan would spend the night at the Bagamoyo Beach Resort with the college students so that they could all continue to enjoy the rest of their time in Bagamoyo together. As I walked back to the Bagamoyo bus stand alone, I thought about how I would miss this quaint little town as well as our Compassion Child who lived there. I hoped that this wouldn’t be the last time I would see either of them.

Zanzibar

2011-12-18T04:18:00Z

Well, we made it to Zanzibar! We took the 9:30 ferry on Thursday and ended up arriving around noon. We checked into the hotel and then ate lunch at a cute little restaurant down the street. I had vegetable biriani, Lara had Pilau, and mom had chicken and chips. Then, we headed off for a guided walking city tour around Stone Town. I had already been on this tour, but it was cool to hear everything again. I caught so much more this time around since we weren’t in a huge group. The tour showed us the old slave chambers, the church, Tippu Tip’s house, Zanzibar doors, and much more. We all returned to the hotel, hot and sweaty, for a nice shower. We ate at the seafood market that night and I had a tuna shishkabob and chapatti while mom had a prawn skewer. We also tried Zanzibarian pizza-a fried pizza with laughing cow cheese, tomato, and egg. We also had passionfruit juice and fresh pineapple. By that night, we were all exhausted, so we went to sleep on our lovely air conditioned rooms J.

Yesterday we got up early and had a breakfast of fruit, toast, cereal, eggs, and kitumbua. We met Karen’s family down in the hotel lobby for a dolphin tour. The drive was quite long (over an hour) but we finally made it to the dolphin beach where we got masks and flippers and headed out in a boat to find dolphins. After about 30 minutes we spotted a pod of dolphins and got ready to jump. And just like that, we were swimming with the dolphins! I LOVE swimming with the dolphins! This pod was a group of 6 dolphins, and they were quite fast so it was hard to keep up with them. We snorkeled for a while afterwords and got to see starfish, sea cucumbers, needlefish, parrot fish, angel fish, and lots of coral. We ate lunch at the lodge and had rice, chips, chapatti, tuna, spinach, and coconut sauce. It was delicious! After lunch we drove to the Jozani forest and got to see the red colobus monkeys which live only on Zanzibar. We returned to the hotel around mid afternoon and I went off to the market while the others showered and rested. I ended up buying a kanga and some spices. I got lost a few times in Stone Town, but eventually found my way back. Last night we ate dinner at the Radha Food House, a wonderful little Indian Restaurant.

Today we are just going to hang around Stone Town. We don’t have a ton planned but we want to go to the shops and do some shopping and then perhaps go to the beach.

Mikumi National Park

2011-12-15T07:07:00Z

Monday we departed for our safari!! Lara and I were a little nervous about making it to the hotel on time, since we had to be there by 8:00 am, but it ended up working out perfectly. We took a dala-dala to Ubungo and then walked to the hotel, and still had plenty of time to spare. Our tour company picked us up at the hotel and we were introduced to our driver: Amani. He was a very nice guy and spoke pretty good English. The drive took us about 4 hours, but then we drove on a little game drive through the park for another couple of hours. By the time we got to the lodge it was close to 3:00 pm! We ate lunch at the lodge (it had such American food, it wasn’t even funny). We had vegetable pancakes and dad had a burger and fries. I also got a real salad! We went on a game drive that afternoon and saw a variety of animals including impala, giraffe, elephant, red buck, bush buck, marabou stork, saddleback stork, hornbill, lilac breasted roller, zebra, wildebeest, buffalo, and hippos. We returned around 7:00 pm and had dinner at the lodge. I had fish and rice while Lara and mom had beef kebabs and dad had spaghetti. Lara and I went to sleep in our wonderful lodge (which we had all to ourself) and slept soundly.

Breakfast the next morning was a huge plate of fruit, toast, and eggs with sausage and bacon. We left at around 8:30 am and did a game drive until noon when we came back for lunch. Lunch was tomato soup and a salad for me, a sandwich for mom and dad, and roast chicken for Lara. We hung out and played cards until 4:00pm when we went on another game drive. We returned for dinner and then headed off to bed.

Wednesday morning we woke up super early for an early morning game drive at 6:00 am. It was the perfect temperature out, not too hot and not too cold! During the first hour of our game drive, Amani spotted two lions off in the distance and we drove around to get a closer look. Sure enough, there was a male lion and female lion sitting in the grass. We watched the lions for about an hour-my dad was so excited to see them! We continued on with the rest of our drive and then went to breakfast at 9:00 am. We departed MIkumi National Park at 10:00 and started off back towards Dar. The drive took longer than usual since we stopped at an ATM and at a woodcarver’s market. Plus, there was a huge traffic jam! We didn’t get back to the hotel until around 4:00 pm. We dropped our stuff at the hotel and went to a little café to eat. Dad and I had beans and rice while the others had meat and rice. From there we went to the Godde’s and watched Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty, which my dad had brought on DVD from the states. It was weird watching the movies on DVD and in the sweltering heat! Carla and Zoe stopped by and we said our goodbyes to them (they left that night) and Hani and Lauren also departed. It was yet another day filled with goodbyes.