Baaaalllliiiiiiiiiii....................

Bangkok was just great. Catching up with old friends, shopping for all the things I was running out of (and more!). But I needed a few days of down time where I could just be quiet. Bangkok is great, but it is a Mega City with all the bustling and true relaxation is difficult if you want to leave your apartment!

So, I figured I’d hit Bali for a few days. There were two ‘parts’ of my days in bali. The first was all about the pampering and living the good life. Eat excellent food washed down with Cosmopolitans you can drown in, staying in a big comfy bed, massage, pedicure, facial pampering, yoga….ahh, bliss.

I spent a few days in Ubud which is rice paddy heaven and then went down to the beach town. Typical beach day:
Check in hotel
Drop bags
Sit by pool and eat lunch
Take a dip and continue to sit by pool
Dinner at fabulous Italian restaurant, overlooking the beach
Walk down beach to fabulous bar on the beach, sit on cushions watching the waves roll in under the moonlight drinking cocktails made by the gods (fresh strawberry caprioska, bellinis, grape martini…mmmmmmm!)
Sleep happily
Wake up late
Eat buffet breakfast
Start over again

Truly vacation!

The second part was surreally spending time with good friends – lots of them! I don’t love traveling alone but I was prepared to do it for a few days. But I didn’t have to. In fact, I was downright busy in Bali meeting up with friends! Lots of people from T were still on evacuation in Bali. Additionally, those of us who were not evacuated were needing more regular breaks. So, I didn’t actually spend any time alone – in a good way. Spending time with friends who were escaping T for a bit was great. You could process all that was going on with them and still remember that life goes on!

But it was truly shocking and odd how many people were there: I arrived at the airport and called a friend who I knew was in Ubud even before leaving. She told me her husband was due to arrive at that very airport in any minute to change a ticket. So, I called him, waited literally 3 minutes and got a ride with him upto Ubud! I got to Ubud and stayed with a friend of mine who was there with her parents who were visiting from New Zealand. Lovely reminder of family life – and fun to see where a good friend “comes from”!

We also met up with an old roommate of hers from T who was now living in Ubud. We went for drinks with him and a few of his friends. At the end of the night, I had this strange conversation with a woman I just met:
HER: “so you must know Dave…”
ME: “Yes, I know Dave. He’s in another part of Indonesia now and we talk about connecting at some point.”
HER: “well, dave’s in Legian.”
ME: “I’m going to Legian tomorrow!”

So, not only was I staying at a hotel with another friend of mine from T for the next couple of days, I met up with my old friend Dave a hung out a few times.

Maybe this is just a boring blog entry for you all. But I am still baffled how I managed to spend quality time with 4 or 5 good friends while I was in Bali. In BALI! There is no better vacation!! Too bad it was only 5 days!!

Ahhh, Baaaaangkok........

Late July 2006

Soon after the island trip of roughing it camping style, I left for a week of much needed rest. This was going to be a great trip! I went to Bangkok and visited old friends for a couple of days and shop and then went to Bali to just relax. But it was all very very surreal!! June and July were all about working 15 hour days, crashing and getting up the next day and doing the same in our mass efforts to avoid a humanitarian crisis. Get food and water to people so they don’t die. Then I went to the tiny island and saw the beautiful natural paradise juxtaposed with poverty not significantly less than what was in the camps in the capital.

Now, I was in Bangkok where I shopped in the most modern of shopping malls, had some beautiful silk clothes custom made for pennies and saw Superman Returns in the super posh movie theater of Bangkok. I also, oddly, saw the elephant on the street AGAIN. When I was in Bangkok in April, I first saw this baby elephant. Photo below is from April.

Last time, I was in the SkyTrain station and looked down to the street. This time, I was outside a SkyTrain station trying to meet up with a friend. We were on our cell phones trying to locate each other as we’d come out different exits. I looked up and said ‘Oh, I’m behind the elephant.” He paused and said “oh, yea I see you.” Who’d have thought a live elephant would be a reference point in the middle of Bangkok city?

(Point of note: only in the US is it difficult to have a mobile phone line. In Thailand, you pay $10 and get a phone number and about $5 of phone credit. In Indonesia it is about the same. Even in T, where EVERTHING is exorbitantly expensive, it is $25 with $10 of credit! So, bring your phone and just pop in a SIM card. When will the US catch up to the rest of the world technologically?)

Tio La Martinho

Mid-July/Still on my island tour…

We were accompanied on this island trip by an ‘older’ local gentleman who worked for years and years to take care of the water systems that they have on the island. No one invited him but he came. He would sit quietly in each meeting with his huge coke-bottle-bottom glasses and wispy gray fu-man chu goatee, seriously taking notes. Just glancing at him made me smile as I remembered Mr. Magoo. His name is La Martinho. Tio La Martinho. No one knows where he got a name like this. He was named when the Portuguese ruled. Maybe there were a couple of French quietly running around as well? He’s tiny and shriveled and I can’t even guess how old he is. And he’s still more fit than me (or any of my colleagues for that matter!)

We walked upto a water source one day and on the way up, he went first, showing us the way. He’d often have to stop and wait for us to catch up or catch our breath. We are so soft.

We came back a little late as dusk was settling. The paths weren’t too treacherous but we took it slow as we couldn’t see the terrain very well. We had 1 flashlight for the 5 of us and as dark got closer and closer we all pulled out our cell phones and walked by the light of those – they certainly weren’t serving any other purpose out here. We each had a little light – except La Martinho.

La Martinho was taking up the rear and with every slip of the foot we all nervously heard, his quiet old voice would call out “Neneik! Neneik!” (“slowly, slowly!”). You could just imagine his walking behind the 4 of us (all in our 30s, 2 foreigners, 2 city folk from here) worried that we just weren’t upto this challenge as he easily took it step by step as he had a thousand times. When he later took out his glasses, I thought “I wonder if he EVER sees anything?” I don’t imagine the setting sun was much of an additional challenge for him.

It was actually quite difficult for me to understand La Martinho. He is quite chatty and clearly is a wealth of historical and technical knowledge. He’d often sit with me trying to help me better understand what had and is going on with the water systems. He is this little old man who speaks like he’s pinching his nose. He is also missing all his front teeth. I kept thinking “if only I could get him some teeth, maybe I could understand what he’s telling me.”

No Shoes, no Fish

Mid-July/Still on my island tour…

One afternoon we were in a beautiful area where we heard had the greatest snorkeling spot – and this is saying A LOT for this island because there is a lot of coral and loads of great places. So, we (my Dutch colleague and I) had a free afternoon and walked over to the area. It was low tide so we took off our shoes and proceeded to slowly navigate over the exposed rocks and grass. I wasn’t exactly sure what we were walking into or how far we’d have to walk before we could swim but we just went slowly.

I saw a woman standing in knee high water a little ways out and I asked her “is it okay to walk out here without shoes?” She called back ‘no, there are (XXX) in here.” I heard the word she used but I didn’t know the translation. Now, when I’m speaking to villagers (who don’t have much contact with foreigners), I’m always skeptical of what they tell me I can and can’t do because they think foreigners can’t handle much of what they do.

While they are sometimes correct, they often completely underestimate our ability to withstand discomfort or take on nature. For example, whenever I go hiking there is always one or two people who completely doubt that I will be able to get up the hills (which are usually perfectly fine – the type we chose to hike for pleasure). Or they’ll give me ridiculous time estimations. “Oh, that’ll be about 3-4 hours.” And we reach our destination in 45 minutes. [This latter point can sometimes be simply because people don’t really use time as a measure so they don’t have a clear idea! But often also because they think we foreigners are just plain inept and will take 3x as long as they do.]

So, the way to get around the presumptions and misunderstandings, you learn how to cross-check. So, I asked her “Are YOU wearing shoes?” When she said yes, I turned back immediately. T'ese don’t usually wear shoes on land. There was clearly something in here you didn’t want to step on! (turned out to be large sea urchins with 5 inch spikes) Guess I’ll have to go back and see the great snorkeling spot at high tide when I can swim out! Can’t wait to see the sea urchins from my snorkeling mask!

"Gilligan's Island"

Getting Back to Work

Mid-July 2006

I live in the capital city, but work in the rural areas, including a tiny off-shore island. Yes, even tinier than the speck of a country that I’m already in! For those of you interested, the country is about the size of Connecticut and has less than a million people. The tiny island has about 9000. It is beautiful and pristine. Of course, beautiful and pristine also means very un-developed which ensures poor living standards and amenities…so extreme poverty for them, camping-like conditions for me (which I note, not out of complaint, but for your info since you are presumably reading this because you know me!).

After such tense times in the capital, it was nice to get away, sleep well and relax. This was our first big visit to the island and we rented a small local boat and circled the entire island, stopping at most off the 15 or so little hamlets tucked just between the beach and the hills. Some of the more notable points of my visit:
- The more populated, east side of the island is lovely. The west side is magical. The crystal clear water, coconut trees lining the beach where we pulled our little outrigger boat into, the traditional huts set back at the base of the hills, seeing children from a distance running, playing and laughing on the beach and watching everything cease in stunned reaction to the visitors (us!)… All of it, almost untouched by the external world. Life is tough here but even the people seem lighter of heart.

- We were having a community meeting in one village. About 50 people sitting on the beach (we important people got the uncomfortable, ubiquitous plastic chairs) under the trees listening intently, shyly. The meeting, as usual, progressed at a snails pace – trying to engage people and talk about what they want rather than them waiting to hear what they will get. Suddenly, the laughing and whistling of kids playing began to waft over the meeting. Not quite interrupting and yet not unnoticed. About 3 or 4 dug out canoes (hollowed out trees) were floating by filled with kids. Fishing or playing or both, they were having a lovely day in the late day sun about 50 yards off the coast. Maybe it is because I’ve been in such a heavy place for the past 2 months, but these sounds of happiness were more than welcome.

- I think the most ‘fun’ I had on this trip was the boat trip: 2 meter (yard) swells in a 6 meter wooden boat. We hugged the shore the whole way but the fact is that you are often in deep water once you are out 15 meters from the shore. Very steep and quick dropoffs! i.e. Open Water. At no point was I really worried about things like my life (could easily swim to shore) but its still a bit unnerving to be tossed about as we were.

- Do you like papaya? Seems like a simple question right. Well here, there are actually 3 edible parts of the papaya. The fruit (which I don’t like and can generally avoid easily), the leaves which are a bit bitter but can generally be prepared well and can be reasonably tasty, and the rind which just plain tastes like earwax. I learned on this trip that I don’t like the rind of the papaya.

- Soapy coffee. I don’t think I’ll ever come to like it, but I am getting used to it. It is customary to offer guests coffee upon arrival in a village here. Unfortunately, water is scarce and the dishsoap they use is hard to rinse off – particularly from the plastic cups where the soap seems to infiltrate and eternally stay. So, I stopped counting how many cups of overly sweet coffee with a hint of soap I have drunk. The one though that goes through my mind each time is “hmm, hint of soap again. This won’t be the last time I drink this.”

- Upon arrival in one village, someone disappeared and quickly returned with fresh young coconuts, clearly just picked off the tree. Pulling out a machete (a very useful, all purpose tool) the head of village quickly went to work to make a 2” dia. hole in the top of each so we could drink the mild coconut water. I’ve never been a huge coconut water fan. A few sips are always refreshing but the taste was never one I’ve taken too. However, today, I was very excited to 1) not be served yet another cup of soapy coffee and 2) quickly rehydrate (coconut water is most medicinal in the tropics!) They gestured that I should begin drinking to which I thanked them and quickly followed with a gesture to my colleagues that they as well should begin.

The truth is, I had no idea how to maneuver the coconut so the water went in my mouth and not down my shirt! We foreigners have many an embarrassing moment (they don’t use knives here – try cutting a tough piece of beef with a fork and a spoon!) and I quickly envisioned the coconut experience going that way. I’ve drunk straight out of the coconut before but always in the ‘big city’ where they stick a straw in it for you. I just couldn’t imagine being able to properly sort it all out so the water went where it was supposed to. We had an uncomfortable moment of my colleagues waiting for me (the most important person always goes first) and me waiting for them to drink so I could see how it was done!

Finally I convinced them to go ahead. I observed hand and lip placement along with the appropriate head tilting. (yes, we are still talking about drinking straight from a coconut) Still not at all sure I’d manage without feeling like a 2 year hold with her first cup of juice (mental image of coconut water pouring out of both sides of my mount and straight down my chin, neck and finally to my shirt), I gave it a try. I can happily report not a drop was lost. Something about the inner shape of the coconut controls the flow (yes, I work with water and this is how I think about liquids!) and it really isn’t so tough after all!! I’ve since had 3 or 4 more and can now confidently drink a coconut. Who said I don’t have skills?

More Gilligan’s Island stories to come…

The Blog is Back

Time has passed. But I’ve been keeping notes of the funny, surreal or just plain odd things I’ve seen. So, THE BLOG IS BACK. I’ve now written about 10 entries from the past four months that I’ll post every few days. So, keep checking back!