Travellin´ Light

Ghana Business Names

2010-06-24T20:12:00.004-07:00

I spent three weeks travelling in Ghana this spring and found it a challenging difficult wonderful exciting country to travel in. And I was on tour with a great group. We travelled with Explore Travel based in England and travelled by bus throughout the country meeting great people, enjoying the landscape, and even meeting a few elephants along the way.

But, one of my favorite activities for the whole trip was recording the names of the businesses we saw along the highway, in towns and cities. Ghana has a strong religious basis and it uses text from the Bible to create names that we might find jaw dropping, funny, laughable - but which they use without a hint of irony.

Here, in no other order except that in which I saw them and wrote them down, is a very long list of business names. Even though it is a long list, I think you'll find them fascinating and need to read all the way through - hey some of the best are in the middle and then there are the ones at the end.

Feedback is welcome. Drop by and say hi.

Business Names in Ghana

By His Grace Cosmetics and Boutique

Joy Spot Catering

Anointed Fast Food

Work Hard Photos and Video Network

God First Battery Service

Only Believe Floral Works

Riches of Glory Guest House

In His Time Living (Housing estate)

Miracle Child Academy

Bed Time Hotel

All Shall Pass Enterprises

Showers of Blessings Enterprises

God Is Good Electrical

His Mercy Seat Ventures

Pillar of Rock Ventures

Kastic Furniture – In God We Trust

Fear Not Phones

Except God Enterprises

The Lord Is My Shepherd Beauty Salon

Jesus Cares Carpentry Shop

Once Upon a Time Funeral Home

Beloved Child Computer Academy

Seek Ye First (Mat 6:33) Supermarket

Run For Your Life Int. Chapel (international? or interment? which do you think?. I didn't know.)

Pentecostal Church and Herbal Prayer Centre

Stomach Has No Holiday Food Shop

Good Name is Better than Riches Cosmetics

No Jesus No Life Supermarket

Dependable God Store

Up Lord Engineering Shop

God’s Time Is The Best Auto Engineering

Holy Child Circumcision

Prince of Peace Cosmetics

Only Jesus Can Do Fashion

God First Fast Food

God’s Pencil Business Enterprises

God’s Signature No Eraser Enterprises (What Is Written Is Written)

Over To God Enterprises

Patience to All Car Wash

Divine Providence Cosmetic Shop

God Is My Helper Saloon (Beauty Salon – not bar!)

God Is Love Furniture

God’s Gift Dress Making

Let There Be Light Electicals

God Has Done Computer Services

Jesus Is Soon Coming Enterprises

In Him Is Life General Store

Christ In You Barbering Shop

Allah Is The Answer Supermarket

No Way Electricals

Lion of Judea Metal Works

Knock and Ask Shoe Enterprises

Lord Winners Investment

Dr. Jesus Fast Food

Holy Ghost Power (Electrical)

Passover Chop Bar

Fishers of Men Electricals

Jehovah’s Newest Co. Ltd.

God is King Razor Wire and Furniture

My God Key Service

Jesus Power Provision Store

Divine Favor Venture

Romans 8:35 Enterprises

God Peace Electrical and Construction

Holy Ghost Workshop

Papa Yaw Corpse Decoration Services

Let There Be Food Cold Storage

Powerful God Business Centre

Trust God and I African Wear Shop

Don’t Go There Enterprises

Ancient Power Electrical Services

Great Wisdom Book Shop

Blessing and Living Baby Diapers

God’s Way Metal

Jesus Is Evergreen Ltd.

OD Mortuary

Jesus Cares Multiventures

Noble Character Enterprises

Thank U Jesus Fitting Shop

In Him Is Life Electrical Repairs

Heaven’s Gate Funeral Home and Morgue

God Is Good Concrete

Mercy Love Beauty Hair Care

By His Grace Fashion Centre

I Promise Furniture Works

Ultimate Glory Hardwares

Let Bygone be Bygone Beauty Salon

Welcome to Israel Barbering Shop

Loaf Of Life Bakery

My God is Able Enterprises

Ave Maria Beauty Shop

God Will Provide Fitting Shop

God Is In Machine Shop

Last Hour Washing Bay

Messiah Motors

The Lord’s Casket Furntiure Construction Works

Hotel Messiah – A Glimpse of Heaven

Amen Scientific Herbal Hospital

God Is Alive Tailoring Shop

Jealous Transport Services

By Faith We Make You Look Great

Grace Faith Fashion

Relax Jesus Is In Control Unit Transfer

With God All Things Are Possible Beauty Salon

AWAKE! Internet Café

Try Jesus Digital Photo

Maple Leaf Chemists (this one is just for Canadians)

God Will Do Welding

Thy Heart’s Desire Beauty Salon

Future Ladies Beauty Shop

God’s Time Drums

Seek Jesus Keycutting Service

Peculiar Child Academy (We Are Different)

Virgin Kids and Junior High School

The Blood of Jesus Fitting Shop

God Is Grace Communication Centre

God is Able Enterprise

Excellent Faith Enterprises

Holy Child Forex Bureau

Steps to Christ Enterprises (Annex)

Accra

2010-04-03T13:56:00.004-07:00

We got our tour today - the first official event of our Explore trip. We are an older group than I expected - we are used to being elder statesmen on tours but on this one we are about average. There are 15 people, and we have a tour guide named Yao who is local and a local driver named Queikoo. (I really don't know how to spell it, so I'm guessing.)

Geordie also changed more money since the atms and banks on the trip will be few and far between. The currency is the Cedi which is pronounced CD - just like the music storage system. The first time it was mentioned I had this image of being handed a handful of round shiny objects with no way to play them.

The tour seemed to be mostly of things along the Ring Road - Yao appears to be ensely impressed by these modern freeways which certainly make getting places more efficient. But there were highlights - the National Stadium where they play football (soccer, of course). Ghana may well be in the top ten of the world when they start the international football competiton in South Africa this summer.

We also saw Kwame Nkrumah's tomb. He was the man who led Ghana to independence; in fact he became president while he was imprisoned and they had to let him out to take power. He is quite revered now, even though in 1966 he was deposed in a coup d'etat and went to Guinea where he became co-president of that country - no easy feat I would think. Along with the mausoleum there is a museum which preserves his desk from his first office and his furniture which is kept huddled together under plastic behind some ropes with the colours of the National flag - red, yellow and green with a black star in the centre.

We also got to see Fort James Prison which is on the coast above a fisherfolk shanty town. Yao assured us we would be ok, but to watch our cameras. And indeed one of our group was hassled and yelled at by a man that she couldn't take a picture of the lighthouse on the coast. Yao did a little protecting, but Geordie stayed with her too, to make sure he didn't get more aggressive.

We drove by the infamous computer dump with its shanties, and its poor children who die far too young in the service of finding the rare elements in computers that they can resell. It's amazing that we send these away to forget about and they are killing children on the opposite side of the world.

We also got a tour of the National Museum - as museums go it is not on the list of the most well serviced. There are examples of the famous woven Kente cloth which is quite beautiful, as well as a loom - the cloth is woven in quite narrow strips which are then joined. There were also musical instruments, drums, fetish dolls, and other anthropological items of interest - including stone age tools - we've seen thousands of those in our day - it feels like "if you've seen one arrow head you've seen them all.

Our penultimate stop was at one of the famous coffin carving shops of Ghana. These are so popular and so interesting that folk musems come to buy for their collections. We saw coffins in the shape of a Star beer bottle, a flour sack, a Lockheed L1011, a crab, a papaya, a bus and a giant fish. There were also miniature versions for ashes - in the shape of a rooster, a shrimp, a cellphone, and an elephant probably for a baby instead

Our final destination was The Accra Mall. Today being Easter Saturday it was quite busy - getting into the parking lot was a little like getting into a parking lot on Christmas eve in North America, I think. But inside was a little bit of a bomb - there wasn't even a MacDonald's so we could buy our usual ice cream cone. Maybe I should be celebrating that. What was also odd was that the aisles were full of people but the shops, except for the supermarket, were devoid of customers. It was a little strange to see. I think people were there only for the opportunity to see their friends in air-conditioned comfort.

Tomorrow we take off into the country side. We will stop at a place where there will be demonstrations of kente cloth weaving and local dancing - please, please, don't pick us as the stupid tourists to embarass - I'll do my best to stop Geordie from pushing me forward. There's a guy on the tour who was conceived in Accra - we even drove by the place where his mother worked especially - he's the type I think who would love to be our guinea pig, so I may be pushing him forward if they ask.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the tour. Little of it will be in big cities, so that will be better - we are hoping there will be less pollution and we'll start to see the birds and animals which are part of the beauty of this country.

Home at Last

2010-02-03T18:40:00.001-08:00

Ah, Manila to Vancouver is a long haul. We were up at 5 am to get to the airport where after check in we spent three hours waiting for our flight. It always seems silly to check in so early, but then we look at the line up behind us and are thankful. I'm a very impatient liner-upper so Geordie has to suffer my complaints as we stand waiting and waiting. Our flight to Narita Airport in Tokyo took another four hours, but it arrived early so we had even more than our alloted four hours of waiting time there. When we arrived we had to transfer to the terminal which took another interminable line to snake slowly through a new security check.

Finally we got to take off at 6 pm Tokyo time (7 Manila time) and a matter of 8 1/2 hours flying to Vancouver. It was a long night of little sleep, since there was turbulence and the staff couldn't clear the traytables which meant that they had to keep the lights on an extra hour. I amused myself by watching Where the Wild Things Are, while Geordie played Solitaire or read his book - which he finished and left on the plane. We breezed through customs and immigration - it's so nice when there are so few people there - we were first in our line-up - which is a first in itself. Outside we headed to the new Canada Line terminal and got a cheap ride into the West End - well, Yaletown anyway, and then a bus down the street from which we hopped off to have a late and much tastier breakfast at The Dish (instead of the pretty awful food of Japan Airlines). John whom we saw in Manila just over a week ago was working, so we had a lovely reunion with him and the rest of the great staff there - and I got a wonderful warming bowl of oatmeal - it was after all only 5 degrees and we were wearing only t-shirts and a long sleeve shirt on top of that - no, we don't travel with jackets, although I did suggest to Geordie that it was a perfect time to buy a nice warm fleecy hoodie at the Olympic shop right there in the arrivals hall. He didn't go for it.

After our breakfast we walked, yes, walked, down Davie Street and home, shouldering our backpacks - which were lighter on the return journey than on the first leg - 6.5 kilos for G and 7 for me.

At home it was a little like Christmas, because we found gifts from our house guests to open and then a stack of Christmas cards and letters to read. And the tree outside which is always lit for Christmas is still beautifully bright with coloured lights. Looks like they've decided to extend the lighting through the Olympics. Speaking of which, we also found out today that the official Olympic Torch Relay will pass directly in front of our building - we won't even have to go outside to watch - well, we will go outside, but still...

And then we went to the library - we had books we'd reserved ready for pickup, I had a package at the post-office (origami stuff), and Geordie did a little shopping while I walked up the hill to Melriches to have a nice knitting session - my first since we left on November 6. Although come to think of it, it was more of an un-knitting session since I discovered an error six rows back after I'd knit two rows and I couldn't just leave it alone so had fun ripping back the stitches and picking them all up again. Really, I do like knitting!

We have a busy weekend planned. We should be zombies by the end of it. We are going out for a special Steak dinner at our favourite place, the Hamilton Street Grill (Steak frites for $20.10), then on Friday we will have lunch with friends James and Terry, then dinner with Marje who is arriving from Calgary along with our friends Steve and Karen. On Saturday we're having lunch with Kimm from Calgary too, and Saturday night is the house warming party for Holli, Geordie's daughter, as well as a celebration of our son-in-law's big 4-0!

I'm feeling exhausted already but then again maybe it's the fact that by the time we get to bed we will have been on the go for about 35 hours total. We'll be popping the melatonin, I assure you.

Small La Laguna

2010-01-23T21:50:00.005-08:00

Getting here to our new location for our final week of beach was a comedy of errors, it seems. Things started out well - we were picked up even before 10 am by our driver in the nice big Toyota van with great air-conditioning and we set off for the Sofitel where the other couple who were to go with us were ostensibly waiting.

That didn't take too long, maybe 20 minutes - I had wondered why we were picked up so early since the story was that the couple would be ready at 11 am. Well, first we had to go through hotel car security and then weren't allowed to wait in front of the hotel. Security was serious - we had a sniffer dog to check us out. But we were shunted off to a parking lot where we were left by the driver - with the air-con on, at least - and were left there for about 30 minutes before he came back without them.

So they were at the airport? He had gotten a call from his office. Off we went to the airport where we parked again, and the guy checked - no passengers for him there. So back to Sofitel - and just before we arrived there he got another phone call - and only two blocks from the hotel we made a U-turn and went back to the airport - to another terminal (there are 3). More phone calls - I even got to talk to Katherine at our hotel who explained things a little and said she would make amends when we arrived.

Finally at the second terminal we found the couple - who were Americans here to dive at El Galleon (a present for Dave's 60th birthday from his wife Karen - nice - my 60th is coming up this year - wonder what I'll get?

So we spent almost two hours in the van before even finding Dave and Karen. There had obviously been lots of crossed wires. They were fun companions for the travel though and apparently Karen is going to be spending her time here knitting, so we can talk about that - lol - as well as hear about Dave's dive adventures.

The drive down to Batangas took another two hours - mostly on a good toll road so except for the bottle-necks of the toll booths, we made good time. Until we arrived in Batangas where it seemed every vehicle in the city was on the road - it was really a jam. Turns out one of the bridges that crosses whatever water course we had to get over, is out so everyone is channeled through the same route.

At the private pier where the hotels for Puerto Galera/Sabang moor their boats, we were ushered to our very large 50 seater boat - all four of us! The ride over took an hour through some decent swells - thank heaven the outriggers are flexible because they took lots of stress. At one point I was moved to the other side of the boat to help balance it out and then at another point a big wave breached the plastic water screen and drenched my shirt and pants. The sailors were quite apologetic and immediately came over to swab me, and the cushion I was sitting on, down. No other mishaps although when we arrived at the beach it took the pilot quite awhile to maneuver the boat into the wharf.

Our hotel, El Galleon, has a small pool and our room was right outside it - if someone had jumped in we might have been swamped there too since it was a foot lower than the pool. It was a nice room - smaller than expected but comfortable, and with hot water in the sink as well as in the shower (that's a luxury in this country). We relaxed there until the couple in the room above ours started moving the furniture around - maybe they are amateur interior decorators. It was quite noisy and accompanied by an odd wailing tone.

Later we realized that the couple was having a little tiff - this is an American man and his Filipina partner. She appeared to be in a little snit - cried, whined, went off in a huff - at one point the guy said sotto voce, "It's going to be a long night!" Geordie wasn't too thrilled with the sound effects so while I sat drinking a beer, he went off to the hotel desk and when he came back he announced that we were moved. He had been gone about 10 minutes which I thought was a little long, but in that time he had been offered an upstairs room and had moved all the stuff. Now we get to be the people who are redecorating the room for those below us.

Today it poured rain in the early morning - I slept in quite late, so missed the serious rain that G sat through wondering if I was ever going to arrive so he could have his breakfast with me. He is a patient man. The weather is really nice now though and since we seem to be in the shadow of a hill, it's actually cooler in our room at night so after awhile we didn't even need the air-con. That's nice.

Today we went exploring a little and found out that we can get a direct boat/bus transfer to Manila at a sensible hour - 9:15, for only about $7.00 for two. About a ninety percent saving from the hotel transfer costs. Guess we should be sensible and take it. It even gets us to the area near where we are staying so we can walk to our hotel.

Back in Manila two nights ago we had a great time with John (Vancouver), his good friend Gary from Manila, and James from LA/Mobile, Alabama. We ate in a really good Filipino restaurant - some of the best filipino food we've had on our trip. And so close to our hotel. Then we walked to the gay area of Malate and had a wonderful evening sitting outside the O bar with lot of great people watching and laughs with our friends. It was a late evening for us and made it hard for us to crawl out of bed at 8 am so we could have breakfast and get ready for that 10 am pickup.

We are back in Manila in a week - so we'll have to get in touch with Gary again - John will be flying home by then. It's a Saturday night so we could have a great time with all the people hanging out in our hotel neighbourhood. We will look forward to it.

Fun, food and Film in Manila

2010-01-19T16:22:00.004-08:00

Lots of firsts yesterday. Who would have thought that we would take our first public bus ride this late in our trip. I think we were spoiled in India where we had personal taxi service all over the country which was so freeing that we can't give it up anymore.

In any case yesterday morning we left Tagaytay on an almost sunny day taking one of the motorcycle trikes down to the bus stop area. I got to ride pillion, just like Geordie did the night before - side saddle on the bike itself. At the bus stop a bus pulled up as we arrived and after confirming that it went to Manila (well, to Baclaran, which we'd never heard of) we got on. The bus was airconditioned - we were glad we were still wearing our long-sleeved shirts.

Once we were settled we pulled out the guide book and found that Baclaran was indeed in the neighbourhood of Manila and actually closer to our hotel area than the area we thought we needed. The ride down to Manila through the province of Cavite was lovely - the road for a long way was full of garden centres selling plants which lined the road. Certainly if one lived here one could have a gorgeous garden. We had seen a bonsai in a garden centre in Tagaytay itself that would have set us back about 65,000 pesos (about $1500.00) - a goodly bit of money but so beautiful.

Baclaran turned out to be not quite as easy as we hoped but as usual we coped. We were let off in a sea of buses and had to walk about 10 minutes through buses, jeepneys, people, cars and a large open air market before we found a street where we could locate a taxi - a bit of a rattletrap that still got us where we wanted to go. Good thing we'd been there before because we did have to help the driver find it.

At the hotel things did not go well. We had reserved a room on the 2nd floor (so we thought), although we also knew that we would have to spend one night climbing to the 4th floor. But when we showed up we were informed by a couple of surly and sullen young women that they didn't book specific rooms, that the room we wanted was occupied and we would have to spend all four nights climbing to the 4th floor. We went to look and discovered the "executive room" was about a third the size of the one we'd had back in November, and on the side of the building where the huge condo is being constructed with lots of banging, slamming, and other construction noise to entertain us.

No go! We went to have a coffee at Starbucks (attached to the hotel) and Geordie went off to check out other hotels in the neighbourhood. He came back about 5 minutes later and sent me off to look at room 301 of the Rainbow Hotel across the street. I went off and 5 minutes later was booking the room for us. From the little tiny noisy room we were to pay $1700 pesos, we moved to a large room with a queen sized bed, and a sitting area with a "pleather" sofa and two chairs, breakfast included in the price, $1600 pesos. In a hotel with an elevator!

Ok, on to more fun stuff. While we were on the bus heading down to Manila, Geordie's phone rang and our friend John from Vancouver was at the other end, checking on our arrival in Manila. We arranged to call him as soon as we arrived which we did. He and his brother Joey then made plans to meet us in Manila after we arrived.

It was great. Joey arrived in his car with John, we had our excited reunion and then we headed off to the Mall of Asia for a little tour of Filipino food. Joey apparently has learned the lessons of his mother well, according to John, and insisted we eat as much food as he could think of. We had grilled chicken on a bamboo skewer at Mang Inasal - a big chain that has restaurants all over the country. Then we had to go have huge fresh lumpia (a filipino egg roll) at Mannan Hang, and from there around the corner to have halo-halo - shaved ice with sweetened black banana, a milk based topping and a garnish of slices of creme caramel.

Joey thought this was hardly enough - there was so much more to try, but we were bursting at the seams. It was great fun. We also did a little shopping - got to go to the Costco of the Philippines, and looked at tv tables at the Mall. Joey is still refurnishing his house after last October's typhoon damage and needs 7 tv stands!

Our final stop was for coffee - Joey thought we needed dessert there too, but we resisted. Honestly, even I can't eat that much food. I think I've gained back the 3 pounds I'd hoped I'd lost in the last couple of weeks of eating my high-fibre, no beer diet.

And finally - we said goodbye to our two wonderful hosts and sent them off. We stayed because we wanted to see Avatar, and although Geordie didn't find it so comfortable, I thought seeing the movie in 3D at the Imax theatre was incredible. If you haven't seen this movie, the special effects alone are worth the price. This is the most vividly realized alien planet that I've ever even imagined in all my science fiction reading. The plant life, the animal life, the sky - it is impossible to put into the words the glorious detail. Certainly there are gaps in the storyline - this is not a perfect movie. As I'm sure you've read in reviews, the notion of a sentient planetscape does take simplistic aim at organized religion, the references to recent conflicts here on Earth ("shock and awe"), and the in-your-face racism of the military, and the "big business is king" attitude are way over the top. And the Avatar concept itself needs a little more development. Finding out only half way through the movie that the avatar just collapses when the original mind comes out of stasis was a stretch too.

However, go see this movie. And if you can see it in 3D all the better. The effects are astounding, the scenery is impossibly phenomenal, and the animal life is wild.

The Wind Doth Blow

2010-01-14T21:50:00.002-08:00

We have been living a very sedentary life at the resort with nothing extraordinary happening at all. Geordie has had a dip or two in the "pool" (the ocean), and I have been his erstwhile lifeguard at times. (Not all the times - one night he decided to go in at 9 pm and the hotel guard watched him. I wanted to read!

The only news - is that the wind has been up for three days, so it's actually quite cool on the beach - last night we almost needed wraps to keep ourselves warm. Not quite like shivering in - 40, but hey, compared to the usual.

We have now arranged all our accommodation until we get back to Canada. We leave here early on Sunday morning for a short hop to the mainland of Panay and then a short flight to Manila, from where we have to figure out how to get to Tagaytay most efficiently. I'm hoping we can book a van from the airport but failing that we'll have to catch a taxi back to Manila then a bus to Tagaytay from one of the bus stations. (Yes, I've figured out which one.)

We will be staying at the Tagaytay Econo Inn for 3 nights - some people think that may be too long but we have our books to read so we'll be fine. From Tagaytay we make our way back to Manila and our hotel at Malate Pensionne. In Manila we will get to hang out with our friend James from LA for sure, and our friend John from Vancouver, maybe, and maybe his cousin Henry who we have communicated with about hotels.

From Manila on January 23 we are transferring to the island of Mindoro and the hotel El Galleon. It has a pool as well as being on the beach - maybe by then we can both go swimming. We are spending a week there before we transfer back to Manila for our last three nights at Malate Pensionne and then we will wing our way home just in time to be part of the Winter Olympics festivities in Vancouver. I may have to go down to the stadium and stand outside begging for tickets to see the men's figure skating, since we don't have tickets to anything, but I won't be standing on any ski hills watching the slalomers schuss by.

It will be nice to be home even though we won't be able to drive anywhere for a month what with the Olympic road closures, but at least I can go visit my regular coffee shop and get a little knitting in - there are socks to knit and lots of yarn at home to knit them with. Geordie is looking forward to getting to the library and stacking up on books too. Ah the comforts of home.

Hey, You! Out of the Water!

2010-01-10T04:02:00.004-08:00

Yesterday I got to go into the water at Boracay for the first time on this part of the trip. And the first time in over two weeks. Geordie gave me a clean bill of health even though there was still a scab on part of my scratch wound at my ankle. It was lovely to be there with my brand new swim goggles so I could finally do a little length swimming too - to get ready for our return home in February.

Oh that things would stay the same! I had not shared with Geordie my little niggling worry that there was something going on with the area where I suffered when I was in Thailand - the time that I rode on an elephant in agony because I didn't want to spoil our holiday and the time I had to go to hospital in Chiang Mai for an operation, and a healing process that took a year. But last night I decided that I had better let him know. Things weren't looking too bad but we decided that, yes, I should go back to the medical clinic and have an expert look.

So today we walked up the path to the clinic. Since it was Sunday the doctor was not in, but she was called by telephone and was there to see me in 10 minutes. This woman was not the child that I was expecting from my last experience. It appears that she is in fact the regular doctor and the two who were there the last time were just filling in for her for 10 days.

She invited me in, got me to get my clothes off and examined me. At first she didn't see the problem but I made her look more closely and she was able to determine that my diagnosis was correct and indeed my old problem had resurfaced. But, the good news was that this time I hadn't waited so long to seek help so the doctor felt certain that we had caught it in time.

Then she did her prescription. First an anti-biotic. Then the pronouncement - NO SWIMMING! Sigh and double sigh - what's the point of being at a beach if you can't go in the water. Then she announced a few more things - a high-fiber diet, at least 2 liters of water a day, no alcohol. Hmmm, I think she had noticed my weight and decided to be pro-active and has put me on a diet. Nothing to do with my new infection at all. Seems sneaky to me!

But she was really wonderful. We laughed a lot. We had a good conversation - she was on an Alaska Cruise recently that had landed in Victoria, BC, she was thrilled that we were a married couple. We discussed finance - I gave her a couple of pointers so she could retire early like we did and then when we were saying good-bye she hugged me and then Geordie. Now when was the last time your doctor hugged you good-bye?

I have to go back to see her on Wednesday to see my progress, so I'm expecting another hug then. Maybe it's part of her therapy - hugs are said to help with healing, so I'm expecting a quick recovery and the opportunity to get back in the water by the time we get to the beach in Sabang, Puerto Galera.

Back on the Beach

2010-01-06T18:58:00.000-08:00

We finally left Siquijor four days ago taking the ferry to Cebu where we stayed two nights then flew to Kalibo on the island of Panay, then took the air-con van to Caticlan and finally the little boat to Boracay. Because we couldn't quite get the organization of flights to get us to Palawan we decided the least we could do was come back here to the nicest beach we've found on our travels.

It was like homecoming for us - as we walked down the beach we were greeted by all the people we'd said good bye to 3 weeks ago and welcomed back with open arms. People here really are friendly and genuinely welcoming. We are at the same place we stayed for the last 12 days we were here, and are quite comfortable. The beach is as nice as we remembered although I can't yet enter the water. I haven't mentioned that I scratched my leg somehow about two weeks ago and haven't been able to swim again, because it too got infected. I thought I was safe swimming in the pool at Coral Cay, but I was a little too cocky. The pool. water is mostly salt water pumped in from the ocean so whatever is in the water affected my leg. I'm taking care, it's almost fully healed but I don't dare go in until I'm certain it's complete. I think it may take a couple more days. Sigh.

We are off to lunch shortly with folks we met at Coral Cay. Charlotte and Anders and their their very young daughter are staying a long walking distance from us although on the same beach, so we are going to catch a tricycle on the main road to get there. White Beach where we are staying is 4 kilometers long which explains why we are so hot by the time we get to D'Mall where our favourite restaurant is. In order to look less than soaking wet, the tricycle makes eminent sense. And it's cheap enough.

We do have good news of a different kind. Our friend James from LA is in Thailand right now and is flying to Manila on the 21st of the month. Because we haven't seen him for some time and it's so close, we have rearranged our schedule again so we can meet up with him in Manila for at least a day. We are going to fly to Manila early then head to Tagaytay which is a community about 2 1/2 hours from Manila near a non-erupting volcano. We will spend several days there and then head back to Manila the same day James arrives there to spend two nights before going off to Puerto Galera and our last stint on the beach before we finish in Manila for the trip home to Vancouver and the Olympic games which we will watch on TV.

We look forward to your messages both on the email and on the blog. Do continue to keep in touch. We really do miss you all.

Siguijor Christmas

2009-12-28T19:59:00.005-08:00

We've been on the move, but did want to share our enjoyment of the Christmas party we had at La Casa de la Playa. One of the owners is German and the clientele are also German in the majority, so the Christmas celebration was on Christmas Eve.

We had been staying at La Casa in the Casa Bouganvilleia which is in the garden of the resort. There are some lovely cabins down on the beach level but our place was up 50 steps from the beach and nearer the restaurant. The place wasn't air-conditioned which was one of the reasons we hastened our departure. We had a standup fan and Geordie and I tended to bicker about its positioning - which is quite usual for us. We managed.

Here are a couple of photos of the cottage. We sat on the deck quite often and read our books. The bathroom was miniscule -I bumped my head on the wall on the first day getting up from the toilet (maybe too much information, but I'm sure it gives you the image strongly).

The Christmas Eve buffet was fun. The piece de resistance was the whole pig roasted in the fire pit somewhere on the grounds for about 9 hours if we understood the explanation correctly. It was burnished gold and splendid on its special table, designed to look like a pig too. Then there were lots of different dishes from the menu - potato vegetable souffle, pork ribs, noodle dishes and on and on. Dessert was a coconut gelatine and watermelon. Not a thing on the groaning board was familiar to our Christmas traditions but we got lots to eat.

The party after was really a celebration for the staff. There was a local band with a blind singer/guitarist named the "Stevie Wonder of Siquijor",

and a banjo player, a huge bass guitar and other guitars. The music was a mix of Christmas songs, bluesy songs by the blind singer, and local songs in Cebuano. Emily, who is the Filipina owner of the resort was in full majesty, directing the evening. gathering all the staff to sing the Casa song and leading them in the synchronized dance. Then there were singers who carolled us with local Christmas songs as well. They were in fine voice and we enjoyed it all.

After the singing entertainment the staff and the guests got to do a little dancing - including Geordie and I who were hauled up by Linda, one of the management staff. The group danced late - we went to our cottage at 11:30 pm but the staff danced until 1:30 and only stopped because the band went home!

On Christmas Day we finally got into the sea. We discovered that the resort had some sea booties to rent so we found two pair that sort of fit and went down to the beach. We had to wade out a long way before we were able to swim. As usual I counted steps - it took over 230 strides through the water before we were at waist depth. From then we could at least float and swim. We are obviously out of shape - in the evening my legs were quite tired and I realized it was from the wading.

We left La Casa on the 27th. We moved back to Coral Cay because we missed the opportunity to enjoy both the pool and the air-con. For our first three nights we have been in the newest cottage which is a palace compared to the cottage at La Casa. It's huge. As a matter of fact the whole cottage at La Casa could fit in our bathroom - which even has a section exposed to the outside with plants and sand.

We will be at Coral Cay until January 3 when we will travel back to Dumaguete and then on the 4th we will continue on to Cebu. Then on the 5th we are flying from Cebu back to Boracay. I've decided that Boracay is like Puerto Vallarta - a home base for us as PV serves when we are in Mexico. We enjoyed the location and the beach where we can actually swim from shore rather than wading out for 230 steps, and we can enjoy the good food at the restaurants there.

Some of you may remember our original plan was to go to Palawan. That plan didn't work out when we discovered that we should have made reservations to fly there some time ago. The cheap seats are all sold out and the cost to fly there was more than we wanted to pay. The flight to Boracay was good, as were flights to Manila. So our plan now is to spend 10 more days in Boracay, then fly to Manila and from there head out to Tagaytay which is in the highlands and then finish up in Mindoro, an island not too far from Manila with some good beaches out of a town called Puerto Galera.

Not to worry, we'll keep you posted.

Christmas Is Coming

2009-12-23T16:45:00.003-08:00

We are still in Siquijor although we have moved resorts. Our present location is Casa de La Playa which is about 35 km north from our last place. Our room is on the cliff top - in a garden. We have a distant view of the ocean and can walk down 50 steps to the beach for a little sunning. The gardens are pleasant - with orchids in one area, and other flowering plants we don't even know the names of in other areas.

This resort is cheaper than the last place, but it means we don't have air-conditioning or a beach location. You gets what you pays for! We were scheduled to spend about 9 days here, but we are going to move back to Coral Cay on December 27th. After one day here we realized that we would miss our beach view and our air-con, but we had already paid a deposit for three nights. We decided that it would be odd to move on Christmas Day, so gave ourselves two more nights - of course vacancies at the Coral Cay were also not available without our moving cottages three times if we came back early so we just compromised.

The resort here is not as efficient as it might be. So far at almost every meal there has been some error in the order. A case in point - this morning both Geordie and I chose French Toast with Syrup because we thought that would be easy and safe. Margin for error tiny. So - we heard the kitchen beating eggs then after 10 minutes, the young waitress arrived with one plate of French Toast - no syrup in evidence, but G thought it must have been on the toast.

After five minutes of him eating, we heard the sound of eggs being beaten again - then 10 mintues later, the watress arrived with my meal which was oddly covered in some kind of dark syrup - I thought molasses, but asked anyway. The answer? It's syrup. What kind of syrup? Chocolate! (That wasn't mentioned on the menu.) The litany of errors continues - we have to order our dinners in the early afternoon since food is frozen and needs to be defrosted. I ordered A fried chicken breast last night for dinner - it arrived as a n overcooked chicken leg! Garnish? some cucumber. That's it, folks. I had ordered french fries too - but they took another five mintues to arrive.

And we ordered a bottle of wine last night. First the waitress told us it wasn't cold so did we want ice. We decided on an ice bucket. Five minutes later the owner came out and told us the wine wasn't cold and did we want ice or to have it put in the fridge? I voted for the fridge for 10 minutes. Two minutes later the food arrived. We ate it. Then we asked for the wine - 15 minutes later. It was delivered, without a corkscrew. We asked for one and waited. 10 minutes went by. I got up and asked for the corkscrew directly. The waitress brought it and asked if she or I would open it. I decided that I might be the better choice.

So she went off and I used the corkscrew, inserting it into the cork and attempting to pull it out. The plastic legs(?) of the winged corkscrew bent dangerously but didn't pull the cork at all. So we had to ask for another corkscrew and this time were given an all metal winged one which miraculously pulled the cork. So a half hour or more after eating, we finally drank the bottle of wine.

Tonight the resort is celebrating Christmas - with a buffet dinner. We are guessing that at least that means they can't screw up an order. The main piece de resistance will be Lechon, a large pig roasted on a spit or in a very large oven we are guessing. There is also music - featuing Siquijor's version of Stevie Wonder apparently. Most of the guests are German so I'm expecting wonderful renditions of Stille Nacht (Silent Night) and O Tannenbaum (O Christmas Tree).

I will not go on - it seems uncharitable at Christmas - and we are staying on for three more nights - I guess we are masochists. We are on the island until January 3 after which we are planning to head for Palawan, the spur of islands which head left from the main islands pointing to Borneo. We have not found great sounding accomodationt there that we can afford so we have a Plan B in place - we have emailed Marzon Resort in Boracay, and if things don't work out, we will head there for the last week or so of our trip to enjoy the beach - hey, maybe I'll do that open water dive course.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-21T21:20:00.004-08:00

Merry Christmas

And a Happy New Year
From the Philippines Sandman

And Nigel and Geordie too.

Coral Cay

2009-12-16T18:19:00.008-08:00

As Geordie said on a recent email we arrived at Coral Cay Resort on Siquijor two nights ago and are now enjoying our little house on the beach.

It really is a lovely hut. Here's my only whine of the day though - the beach is so so shallow that when the tide goes out it's about 100 yards to the water. And out there the water goes out for yards and yards more, not even up to our knees. Of course the pool was supposed to be our saving but as some of you know, it's under repair. The good news? Word is that they are going to start filling it today! Yay. We will be at Coral Cay for a week and on December 22 move to another resort called Casa de la Playa. That's where we will celebrate Christmas and New Years.

As you can imagine there isn't a lot to do. The island of Siquijor is it's own province in the Philippines, but the coastal road around the island is only 72 km long! Not so big. There are caves inland and this is also an island of magicians. In fact some people in the Philippines refuse to come here for that reason. We have not seen any sign of magic but we may take a tour of the island soon and see what we can find.

Yesterday we walked to the little town 2 km from our resort to check things out. It has a public market down by the beach where people are selling fish and vegetables. On the road we also found a little park which has a natural spring that the townspeople have turned into a swimming hole. The water spills out into a stream which meanders to the beach. Along the stream we found women washing their clothes and children enjoying the cool water. But no - no pictures.

What we are planning to do other than walk is read a lot. Here is a look at some of our reading material and Geordie ensconced in his seat of splendour under the ceiling fan in our living room.

Yesterday while we were at JJ's Resort nearby I found an illegal copy of Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol in perfect condition on their bookshelf. I know it's illegal because it's a photocopy. We saw many of these photocopied books while we were in Viet Nam where it seems everyone sells them willy-nilly. Not one to pass up an opportunity I asked if I could have the book and the staff said yes. So I took it back to the resort, finished the last 200 pages of Pillars of the Earth then stayed up till midnight to finish Dan's book, another 500 pages. Gee, I do hope our 25 books are enough to keep us going. (No matter, our own resort has a very large collection of paperbacks to pick from too.)

Back to Dan Brown. I am at least impressed that in his latest book he compresses time even more than in his earlier books. In those the time frame of the book is about 24 hours which is pretty impressive when you realize how far the hero and his lovely helpmate have to travel during that time. But in this book he manages to compress the action into 10 hours - and still manages to get in lots of action. At least he divides the action among several of the characters so that things are happening simultaneously. I wonder if he'll get it down to five hours in the next one. And before you know it he'll be writing "One Minute Mysteries".I think I'll post a few more pictures and let pictures speak louder than words for you. Click on the pictures to see them bigger.

1.Oceanjet ferry to Dumaguete 2. Christmas Decorations 3. Orchids of Siquijor

1. Dancing and Ukelele 2. Nigel and Proney 3. Bablayon Church interior

Lost Horizons

2009-12-09T18:59:00.003-08:00

I am melting. It is so humid - I have to run to my air-con room to cool off. The humidty must be 99.99 %. I'm expecting more rain this afternoon - like our 2 hour shower yesterday. The barber last night kept having to wipe my brow with his toilet paper - not the best absorbent! He certainly didnt have to spray my hair so he could cut it more easily.

I think this afternoon we will dip into the cool water of the pool here. We were going to yesterday but then the rain got in the way.

Just so you can check it out, our hotel is Lost Horizons in Alona Beach (check their website with the link.) One little problem - I have awakened with itchy legs both mornings we've been here. Maybe there are bed bugs. Geordie doesn't have the same problem. But it's only a few! The time Geordie slept with them in Mexico he had hundreds of bites, so I'm fine in comparison - and I have Calamine lotion for the itches. (I know - we could move couldn't we?)

Alona Beach is unfortunately not any Boracay. The beach certainly has white sand but the water is not as swimmable because of the weeds near shore, and the shallow depth. I guess we should take up the offer of all the guys on the beach suggesting we go "island hopping". We are doing our best to avoid the sunglass sellers since we both wear prescription glasses, but they are also all vendors of the ubiquitous Viagra - who needs a pharmacy or a doctor's prescription around here?

We are heading off on Saturday back to Tagbilaran for one night since we have a reservation for the 8 am ferry to Dumaguete for Sunday morning. We'll stay two night there and then we are off to Siquijor for our Christmas and New Years locations. We are certainly hoping the beaches are more swimmable, but since we are going to be on the island for three weeks in all, I guess we had better spend some time island hopping to help pass the time other than by reading all our books. I just finished the 1000 page World without End by Ken Follett and after Geordie finishes his "Pillars of the Earth" by Follett I'll read that. (I know, I'm reading them backwards. No matter.)

Off to a little air conditioning.

Bohol Tour

2009-12-07T00:57:00.004-08:00

(Note:click on red high-lighted text to see a link, (often from Wikipedia).

Yesterday we took a ferry from Cebu City to Bohol Island and the capital city of Tagbilaran. We had met a young man called Yam at Malapascua who was also heading to Bohol, so we agreed that we would do a tour of the island with him. So this morning we walked to his hotel and met him and our driver for our tour.

It was a great day. We drove off in a well-air-conditioned van and stopped first at the site of the Blood Compact, a rather macabre treaty but it worked for Spain and the Philippines at that time. Then it was off to see the Choc olate Hills where we got to climb one of the more than 1200 mounds in the area and get lots of photos. The hills weren't chocolate coloured since it wasn't the right season for that, but seeing them covered in green vegetation was actually quite beautiful.

On the way down from the hills we asked the driver to stop if he saw a water buffalo plowing the land, and he found one lickety-split. We got lots of picture of the muddy creature with its muddy master plowing the rich fields to plant the next rice crop. Bohol gets three rice crops a year from its fields and grows enough for export. Not bad for a small island.

From there we went to a really cool butterfly farm where I got to hold moth caterpillars in my hands - yeah, I know it sounds wrong, but the butterfly caterpillars are more likely to cause skin irritation so the moths had to stand in. We did see butterfly caterpillars too, and lots of butterflies flittering about. (No moths though - it was too early in the day, I guess.)

And then on to see the tarsiers. These are wonderful animals - tiny simians, the smallest in the world and normally nocturnal, but they seem to have roused a few from their beds so we could have a look. They are delightful with their huges eyes, soft brown fur and elongated toes.

From the tarsier cages (yes they were caged but they were walk-in cages), we got to have an hour-long tour on the river while eating a buffet lunch. The river is the Loboc and is very green (the water I mean), the landscape alongside is hills covered in a wide array of vegetation - including lots of palm trees of course. While we dined we stopped at a riverside wharf where we were entertained by a village group playing Ukeleles and singing songs of their culture. There was dancing too, including a rice dance with woven baskets and rice pounding women.

And then it was on to see the python - the largest and longest in captivity as the sign says. Its name was Proney and we were told about its history by a very flamboyant lady-boy who sat in his/her bright red dress with very red lipstick and told us how they python was captured when it was only 5 kilos. It is now 8 meters long and eats a pig or goat a month - whole! Of course! I got to go inside its cage and pet it while getting my picture taken. Geordie stayed outside for some reason.The lady-boy also showed us a python skin bikini but said it would be itchy to wear, but if anyone wanted one they did mail-order

Finally we went to see one of the oldest churches on the island, Baclayon - a church made of coral stone. The most unusual thing I saw there? A statue of St. Lazarus. He was wrapped from head to toe in white bandages except for his face, and there was a gold halo sticking up from the top of his wrapped head. I have never seen a statue of Lazarus before so this was certainly unique.

It was a great day - we finished relatively early and got to go back to our hotel to relax. We are at the Bohol Tropics Resort and considering how much I'm perspiring right now, Tropics is the word. Tomorrow we are off to Alona Beach. We got a reservation finally, at a higher rate than we'd like but it's an expensive beach and an expensive season. We have only one week before we head off to spend our three weeks on Siquijor Island. We'll be making the journey by ferry from here.

Until later.

Exotic Malapascua

2009-11-30T17:50:00.001-08:00

We had a great journey yesterday from Cebu City to Malapascua Island. It looks like we are changing our travel style these days, or maybe we're just getting smarter. We could have braved the non-aircon long distance bus which would have taken 5 hours to travel to the village of Maya, and then organized a boat to the island and a trudge on the sandy path to our next destination. Instead we contacted them and for a goodly fee they sent a driver to our hotel in Cebu who did the trip to Maya in 2.5 hours! And then we were met at the dock by a lovely boat owned by the resort - a 50 foot boat with wonderful large outriggers that whisked us across directly to the resort where we had a nice dry landing. Which was a moot point since even though it was a nice big boat it was open to the sea and we got our share of spray from the outriggers and the prow as it dipped into the briny sea.

We are staying at the Exotic Malaspascua Dive Center and Resort on the little island of Malapascua which apparently one can walk around in 3 hours. The fact that it's hot and humid as it is everywhere we have been precludes that idea for me although Geordie left about 20 minutes ago, and if I don't see him for 3 hours I'm guessing he set off alone.

Our place is very nice - I'm sure it's the top resort on the island. Our room is a tad expensive although cheaper than the fancy resort on Boracay and they have a real expresso machine. Our room is a Super Deluxe Air Con - sounds pretty impressive, doesn't it. There's no sea view unfortunately but there is a very nice restaurant in front of the beach so we can enjoy sitting there in the shade. We can also paddle in the sea although it's a little shallow and soon changes to seaweed.

We are very relaxed though and will enjoy our four nights here, even if the other guests are a little aloof - that may be because they all seem to be from Europe and are not comfortable with English. There is a large group from Poland who have a banquet table set up in the middle of the restaurant. We've also heard French, German and Dutch and there is a woman wearing a t-shirt emblazoned Norway Team! Good thing we have each other to talk to.

I may well report a little more later with photos. In the meantime I thought I'd update a little information about Santo Nino. I had a question from one of my readers who asked about him so I thought maybe others would be interested. Click on this link Santo Nino to take you to the Wikipedia article and some photos - oh and I was mistaken, the image of the Santo Nino was a statue not a painting.

Iloilo City to Cebu City

2009-11-28T21:42:00.006-08:00

This morning we got up bright and early to head for Cebu and our continuing adventure with a trip to another island planned for tomorrow. This is the second time we've flown Cebu Pacific and the second time we've both left and arrived early. The plane this morning left 15 minutes ahead of schedule and I think it arrived a half hour ahead of schedule. I also think they check the passenger manifest and if everyone has arrived they use the philosophy "Hey, we're ready, let's go!" Sometimes it would be nice if other airlines did that but I have a feeling we aren't about to convince Air Canada or Delta to change the flight plan for us.

Here's one of the last photos I took in Boracay.

Iloilo was not our favourite city, although I did take some photos . Our hotel was on the Iloilo River and the view in the evening was quite lovely - the cloud masses looked great.

The jeepneys in Iloilo are fancier than those in Manila too, although it's kind of hard to get good photos on the fly, as you see here.

And here's a view directly across from our hotel from the window. It looks lovely and there are some old colonial houses there. Even though we walked through the area in the heat, we didn't get to see any close up though.

We explored the Museo Iloilo which was on one floor of a very large building.

Where we saw ancient coffins.

And religious statuary.

As well as a diorama of an ancient culture that still exists in the highlands of the island (and on the streets of the city where the ones we saw were begging - families living in the crosswalks that allow one to cross the street safely above the traffic.

Then on to Cebu and the few sights there. Here's the Sancutary of the Santo Nino - I think he is the patron saint of th Philippines. The image of the holy Nino is a Flemish painting that came to the Philippines in the 1500's when this building was first completed. There have been two damaging fires but the image survived and is now a place of pilgrimage. We didn't get to see the painting because the service was on and the cathedral was packed.

Candles outside the Sanctuary.

Here's an interior view of the dome covering Magellan's cross. The view shows Magellan at the time of the planting of the cross. Bits of the original are incorporated into the wooden cross which you see a side view of here. Magellan died shortly after on the island of Mactan where our plane landed today. He was killed by a spear when he attempted to overcome the native population there headed by the chief, Lapu-lapu.

This is the front of the Main Cathedral which is just a couple of blocks from Santo Nino.

And flower sellers between the cathedral and Santo Nino.

On to Iloilo

2009-11-26T23:32:00.002-08:00

Well, today we finally made our way through the force field that surrounds Boracay, keeping people in. It took a laboured effort as Geordie complained that he didn't want to leave but we shouldered our packs and walked up the street where we were immediately accosted by a guy offering us a tricycle ride to the port. (A tricycle is a motorcycle with an attached cab. They are everywhere except on the beach path at Boracay.)

The ride to the port took 10 minutes, buying a ticket 2 minutes, walking to the boat 1 minute, waiting for departure, 4 minutes, and crossing, 15 minutes. From the port at Caticlan we were met instantly by a guy who asked where we were going, then lead us down a narrow alley to a parking lot filled with vans - we were settled in and left immediately for Iloilo. It's amazing how efficiently things work in less-developed countries. Try to match that schedule in Canada.

The trip to Iloilo took about 4 and a half hours but the van driver was very efficient. We think he may have been a misplaced race car driver, since the banner over the windshield read "American Racing" and there was a model of a red Formula 1 Race car on the dash. In any case, nothing ever passed us although we passed lots of vehicles. There were places where he had to slow down - a tricycle or a big truck would be in the way for awhile, but as soon as he could, the driver got around them. We also got slowed down some on the road closer to Iloilo which was under construction. The paving is concrete, so there were patches being prepared on both lanes, but staggered so that the traffic could keep moving.

The scenery was beautiful - the greenery lush and fecund - it's amazing how much can grow all at once. There were rice paddies too, some of them terraced, and along the way we saw water buffalo - including at least one pulling a plow. The water buffalo have by and large been replaced by mechanical beasts that look like giant lawnmowers but the old ways still exist.

There were also lots of signs to enjoy on the road - I saw a sign for the Butch Beautfy Salon, and on the wall of a mausoleum in a cemetery we passed was emblazoned M/V Last Voyage - much have been a sea captain.

Our hotel is not top notch, although clean and comfortable. The fuchsia coloured bedspread and drapes give an air of something - I'm not sure what, certainly not faded elegance. There is a restaurant on the river side though and we have a view of the river from our room and in the distance one of the hulking malls where you can buy anything you want, I'm sure.

We had lunch at another Italian restaurant - it was quite good in fact. Geordie had tiger prawns on mango and apple salad, while I had a salami and onion calzone. And the prices were much lower than the prices of similar food in Boracay.

We have a full day in Iloilo tomorrow so we will have to do a little exploring - there is a museum near by and a couple of cathedrals beckon, so we will get a little more culture. Then we are off to Cebu, another city, on another island, although this time we will be flying there. There doesn't appear to be a magic force field around Iloilo, so I'm pretty sure we will be able to tear ourselves away much more easily.

Leaving Boracay

2009-11-25T03:14:00.002-08:00

Tonight may be our last night here in Boracay. 15 days - who knew Geordie could stay that long in one place? Tonight he said he really didn't want to go - he liked it and will miss it.

I went to the doctor today and had my check. He wasn't totally pleased with the results of the medication and prescribed another anti-biotic. My friend Marje said her diagnosis was that I had a coral sore, based on her childhood experiences on the coast of Kenya and that iodine would exacerbate the sore. I think the doctor discounted that when I saw him today. But I was given orders not to swim - didn't tell him about our midnight swim last night.

We will miss Boracay - the things we enjoyed, the beach, the lovely water, the powerful rain. There were other things too. The Miss Earth pageant for which we refused tickets daily on our way along the beach. We never did see any of the beauty queens although we walked by several venues where they would be - the chairs and the dais all decked out in finery. And we did meet Miss Earth 2008's parents - remember. They were the couple who were separated but hanging out together at the Hobbit House. The mother was with her new boyfriend and the father with his new girlfriend - all very friendly.

We also won't forget the young Korean couples who walked along the sand beach path in their matching outfits. It was amazing how many of them were doing it - shorts and t-shirts, even matching hoodies on some of them. It must be cool to do in Korea - or when you holiday at least. Geordie would not be caught dead wearing anything that looked like what I was wearing. He checks our wardrobes carefully for overlap.

And I suppose we won't forget the girls who called out to us every time we passed by. "Massage, sir, massage." They did it in chorus, every time we walked by - in perfect three part harmony I think. It got so irksome, but they do it for every single man who walks by, so we didn't feel singled out.

And I won't forget the child doctors who cared for me. They were charming and serious, and asked us what sights we had seen, what activities we had participated in, as well as checking on infections. Turns out they are only here for 10 days - they will go back to Manila to continue their residencies.

Of course there was scuba - such a wonderful experience. I don't have a list of things I must do before I die, but if I had, scuba diving would have been on it. So I can cross it off. Maybe I should start a list - what about Bungy Jumping, or rafting the Zambesi river with the crocodiles?

We are off now to eat at Aria - an excellent Italian restaurant just below this internet station. We have eaten there at least 4 times including last night, but since it's our favourite we decided we would do it again tonight. Maybe we'll have pizza instead of pasta, but then again - the black pasta with creamy seafood was delicious.

Tomorrow we'll get up, go for coffee at Arwana where we have every morning since we discovered it. It's next door to our resort and the coffee is great. After my fifth or sixth visit, Jhun started serving me a large cup of coffee for the price of a small. They were so nice. And we met Kyle, the 8 year old with the presence of an adult at times. And Nono, who served us our cheap SMB (San Miguel Beer) on the beach at happy hour every evening when we went to watch the glorious sunsets. Tonight's was really wonderful - very mysterious with the red background light breaking through the deep grey clouds.

So on we go - we are hoping to spend only one night in Iloilo and then we'll be off to Guimaras Island we hope. We have asked for a reservation but have not received a reply. Maybe we'll have to use the cell phones we bought for exactly that reason.

Onward!

Rain and Officialdom

2009-11-22T19:17:00.002-08:00

Geordie wrote an email and I'm adding it here, with a few editorial changes.

After our visit to the doctors yesterday afternoon at 5 pm we had a wonderful rain storm, very heavy. Much like the monsoon rains I remember from 1959. It was over after an hour. It sounded wonderful on the roof of the room and Geordie sat out on the bench for most of it, until he started to get wet. The rain really cooled the day down, so it was actually quite wonderful but I'm glad we weren't caught in it, we might have drowned it was so hard. We then walked out for food. No mud after rains as every street is sand.

Today we went to the Immigration Service Office here. I had talked to the woman twice last week so we were ready. She was very nice and so helpful. She has many Filipino friends in Vancouver and Alberta. P 4,300 each later and we had our 1 month extension which gives us 2 days more than we need. We are relieved to now be legal for the whole trip. The office was in the front lobby of a hotel on the main street and was quite busy. There were 3 French guys, a man from South Africa and then a couple more came in, all while we were getting our extensions done.

We tried getting more money from ATM's today. P 4000 limit per transaction (Cdn $95 and BMO charges $5 per international transaction). Geordie did 3 transactions. Pricey. Then there are the bank and exchange charges that we do not understand. Must buy BMO stock. We will be paying for our hotel with our credit card, but for that they will charge us 6.5% more. I think that's considered non-kosher by the resorts but their margins are pretty small, so I imagine that absorbing the costs would be costly for them when they are not in a very great financial position to begin with.

So now to lunch. It's always challenging since there are tons of places, but they are all pretty generic. We haven't yet fallen in love with filipino food - their breakfast meals all seem to end in ..silog - tapsilog, cornsilog, lapsilog, etc. I think the first is chewy beef, the second canned corn beef, and the third fish - all served with a mound of rice and a fried egg. Our place does belgian waffles so that's what I've been having, and the place next door has really, really good coffee so I'm happy.

Tripping the light fantastic...

2009-11-22T18:48:00.003-08:00

Last week, the day before I went snorkelling, I tripped on the steps going up to the bathroom in the cafe we were eating in. I scraped my leg, but of course ignored it as usual. I went snorkelling and there were lots of comments about sharks coming to find me - which would have made Martin happy because he hadn't seen any sharks yet. There were no sharks! Just jellyfish and stinging plankton. Ouch.

But two days later, after my scuba diving adventure, the wound was starting to look red around the area and I decided I should have someone look at it. The manager of our hotel turned out to be the right guy, since he had worked for Rescue911 in Manila for three years. He did a very careful job of cleaning the area with alcohol, swabbing it with Betadine (shades of the Camino) and then bandaging the area.

Geordie became my nurse and cleaned and bandaged the area a couple of times after, but we still went swimming and enjoyed the beach and the water. The area continued to be tender and red, but I even went off to my dive buddies and asked their opinion and they concurred with me that the wound seemed to be healing well - it was dry, although still red.

But yesterday! I woke up and realized that there was a problem. I noticed a bruise on the side of my heel and I knew I hadn't done anything to get it. Then I realized that my ankle was swollen and tender as was my leg generally. This was not normal. Time for some action.

Off we went and found the medical clinic on the main drag here on the island. It's a little hole-in-the-wall place, with two tiny rooms, some plastic seats and a number of people hanging out. I asked the young people sitting around where I could find the doctor and was shocked to discover that the two teenagers I was asking were the doctors. Well, at my advanced age, it's hard to discover that your doctor is now young enough to be your grandson.

The doctors and the assistants were great. They quickly took my temperature (no fever), and my blood pressure (no problem) then diagnosed me with an infection. The treatment options were discussed and then payment costs - Geordie and I had to pool our meager resources to find enough - (under 80 dollars, but more than I'd expected).

Treatment included a tetanus shot which they gave me right away in my upper right arm. The young female doctor did that just fine. Then the male doctor recommended an IV infusion of anti-biotics to punch up the treatment as well as a followup of oral anti-biotics. First they needed to do an allergen skin test for the a-b, which meant pumping a quantity of the drug between the first two layers of my skin - "Ow, ow".

Then there was a 20 minute wait to see if there was a reaction - which there wasn't so the doctor began to prepare the IV. Too bad he didn't get it right the first time since it hurt and I was a bad patient who went "ow, ow, ow, ow, ow" the whole time he was inserting the needle into the vein of my right hand. Since he didn't like the result, he took it out and did it all over again in my left hand - "ow, ow, ow, ow, ow". As the doctor said sweetly, "You have a low pain threshold." I didn't think I did, but hey I guess so.

The doctor then proceeded to clean out the wound with peroxide, then covered it with Betadine, and finally a nice clean bandage. Then he gave us instructions for care - Geordie has to clean it twice a day for me, and bandage it. I have to keep it dry although I can go into the ocean after the second day. The most important recommendation he gave me though?

"Avoid injuring the area again!" What a good idea! Hope I can avoid upstairs bathrooms from now on.

So with my wound treated, we decided it was a good idea to hang around at our resort a few more days. If I had not seen the doctors we might have been leaving this morning, Monday, or at the latest tomorrow. But now we'll probably stay until Thursday so the invalid can be cared for in some comfort. I think it's time to go now - my wound is twinging some more. I need my rest.

Manila and Boracay

2009-11-17T23:43:00.012-08:00

We were in Manila for 4 days before we headed for Boracay. While we were there we did a little sightseeing of course and lots of wandering. Here are a few images for you to enjoy.This is Santiago Fort with good old Santiago Matamoros - Santiago the Moor Killer - shades of the Camino!

And Geordie on the bridge over to another section of the fort.
This candle rack sat outside the prison cell where Rizal, a hero of the Revolution was imprisoned before he was taken to be executed. From another cell, a set of bronze steps on the ground lead to his execution spot.

Geordie stands outside the Manila Hotel - scene of his first experience of getting money changed in the Philippines in 1959 when he was here for the Boy Scout Jamboree.

A jeepney on the streets of Manila. These modified jeep buses are still made in the Philippines and travel set routes on the streets of Manila getting people all over the city.

Dragon boaters on the sea. For our dragon boating friends in Canada.
A set of police shields outside the US embassy in Manila - I was yelled at for taking the photo, but luckily the guard didn't come over to confiscate my camera or demand that I delete the photo.

A mausoleum at the Chinese Cemetery. The cemetery is very well cared for and the ancestors are honoured by their families regularly.

An alley way within the cemetery.

A grave decorated with strips of coloured paper - November 2 is the Day of the Dead - we think there were many family visiting at that time.

Another mausoleum within the cemetery.
Flowers growing in the cemetery. A photo from us to honour all the people resting here.

Sculptures near the Ayala Museum and outside the Greenbelt Shopping Centre in Manila.

Appetisers at the Museum Cafe. The dark things in the dish are salted dried fish. The rolled things are pork skin, but fish flavoured. The thin strips are curried crispy chips and the vegetables are in a soy sauce.

Our lunch at Museum Cafe. Thai spring rolls and fish cakes - a sprig of lemon grass spears the fish cakes. The sauce is sweet chili sauce mixed with mayonnaise.

On the way to Boracay.
Our life boat suspended on the outrigger of our boat.
An idyllic view of the beach.
Kite surfer on Bulabog beach across the island from our resort.
Fisherman with their small throw nets.
Geordie in his new Maui Jim sunglasses - reflecting the beach.
Walking on White Beach in Boracay. The rocklets appear to have a bonsai on top of each one.
Orchids growing in a yard near the beach path.
A slim-hulled outrigger in the Sulu Sea.
Sunset from the beach. Glorious colour, glorious boats

Lunch at Zhu - a Chinese restaurant on the beach.

SMB - San Miguel Beer. The local standard. (I found Moosehead Beer and Molson's on a menu at the Hobbit House Restaurant but it costs about five times as much as SMB!
Art on the beach.
Kids playing.
Oh, look, a picture of Nigel on the beach too.

Suiting up for the dive - the dive belt at 7 weights. The instructor had 2!

It takes 2 to get me ready.
I'm breathing from the tank! Honest!
Into the briny!
Going under!
Back from the depths.
A celebratory beer at sunset with oil-lamp.

The dance of joy for Nigel's first Scuba adventure and his return from the deep!

Boracay Island - Food and Scuba

2009-11-17T22:48:00.008-08:00

If anything can be said of the people of the Philippines, I think the fact that they smile all the time would be on the top of the list. It is so wonderful - Thailand calls itself the land of smiles, but certainly the Filipinos give them a big run for the money. And the vendors on the beach road here in Boracay do not bother tourists constantly as we have experienced in other countries. When we say "No, thank you", that ends the exchange. Certainly we see them again later and they ask again if we want one of their watches, the pearls, the sunglasses, the island hopping experience, snorkelling or even renting ATV's but again, a polite no and a smile is all that is needed.

Boracay is really quite wonderful. The beach area could be in terrible shape - there is a long long area of restaurants, bars, hotels, massage shops, dive shops and anything else you might think of, but they are all back lining a little sand beach path, facing a line of palms. Beyond the palms, the beach itself, with its white sand is pristine. There are no long lines of beach beds as you find in Europe, no palapas as in Mexico, just the beach and a few people frolicking in the water - it's surprising that there aren't more of them doing that, because the water is wonderful - crystal clear, turquoise blue and backed by a line of boats that also do not (and are not allowed to ) encroach on the swimming areas. They are kept in line by police I think, and if they come to close they are sent back in.

My trips for snorkelling and scuba were wonderful. The DiveGurus dive staff were wonderful and always concerned with safety. The day I went snorkelling I went with a Dutch couple who were scuba diving - along with them and three of the dive staff we had a good time, and I even snorkelled with the divers into a little cave where there were bats although I was a little too nervous to see any.

Then it was they who convinced me that I should try diving for real. So that afternoon, after we got back and I had a chance to chat with Geordie I agreed to go out. Turned out that the Dutch couple were to be our neighbours at the Hotel Isla Boracay where we moved and we spent some good times with them and another couple from Germany.

The first night we were at the hotel they invited us to dinner. We went first to a fish market where we bought 5 kilos (yes 5 kilos) of shrimp and then two small lapu-lapu (a white fish) which we then brought to a restaurant where they prepared the food for us. We had the fish with a tangy mango sauce and the shrimp with half in garlic butter and the other half in some sauce in a coconut sauce I think. Here's a picture - note the platter of shrimps is only one half of our order. You can tell Geordie liked them by the second picture. He's licking his fingers, don't worry.

(At the table on Geordie's side are Oliver and Simone from Germany, and on the other side. Inge and Martin from Holland.)

Of course you really need to see picture of my diving experience. There are photos of me suiting up, and then underwater. I've got other suiting up pictures on my camera but for now I'm using the photos that Martin (our Dutch friend) took with his underwater camera.

And of course for Nemo fans, here are pictures of the beautiful Clown Anemone Fish which is so popular thanks to the movie "Finding Nemo".

And one more of me. Just because.

Manila - Cemeteries and Museums.

2009-11-10T02:37:00.003-08:00

Hope you enjoyed our adventure with the laughing police. They kept saying that the 2 of them were Manila's finest of the finest. The cars are labeled "Manila's Finest" and it also appears on the crests they wear on their sleeves.

Yesterday we headed out on the LRT to see the Chinese Cemetery. Geordie misread the info in Lonely Planet and we got off at the wrong stop and walked forever in the heat through not the best area. In fact it was more like the worst area! Nigel did not complain too much. The cemetery is huge and amazing. The mausoleums are huge 2 story affairs for the rich Most have bathrooms, a kitchen and even bedrooms for the visitors.Geordie was there in 1959 and had to show Nigel. The biggest mausoleums are on streets and between those streets are 4 foot wide alleys and 100's of smaller places. While we were there we saw 2 funeral processions complete with lmarching bands. The mourners wore white and had white sashes. Some of the mourners marched behind the hearse holding long white sashes attached to the car.

After our visit to the cemetery we walked through a rather run down area and along a very busy road where we sometimes had to step into the road when the sidewalk disappeared. Good thing we are getting better at avoiding cars that want to run us down. It seems that drivers have no use for pedestrians - we might be walking across the street, but the car does not slow down - we are expected to be gone by the time the car arrives where we were. After the stress of walking then catching the LRT to Chinatown Nigel needed coffee so he chose MacDonalds - well he really wanted an ice cream, the coffee was just an excuse.

We were looking for the restaurant called MXT Tea House which came highly recommended by Lonely Planet. The food was very good and of course we ordered too much and ate it all - beef with broccoli, salt and pepper squid, delicious and savoury fried vegetable dumplings and of course, lots of tea. And for a surprise, we got a tiny ice cream cone as a freebie at the end of our meal.

We spent the afternoon at Robinson Place Mall. Huge. We are now Smart Buddies. After an hour in the Smart shop we got SIM cards for our phones. The cards cost $1 Cdn whereas our Rogers card cost $40. The Canadian phone companies sure have us by the throats.

Today, Tuesday Nigel insisted that after the LRT experiences of being a sardine that we would travel to Makati (another district) by taxi. So easy and quick and cost about $2 Cdn. Makati is a different world from where we are staying. It is clean, it has trees and shrubs and very expensive things. We went to see to the Ayala Museum. It was great. The history of the Philippines is done in 60 dioramas. There is a huge collection of SE Asia ceramics and there was also a special exhibit of a collection of gold body ornaments made in the Philippines in the pre Spanish era.

The pottery was all from the Chinese trading era of the 10th to 13th centuries. Some of it was very fine celadon ware which for me was very reminscent of the work of Bernard Leach who was a potter from England who went to Japan and with the potters there, became a brilliant potter who brought his skills back to England and developed fine ties with the Japanese. Somehow I have the feeling that the Japanese were inspired by the Chinese because I saw such similarites to their work. Oddly enough there was an article on Leach in the Japan Airlines In-flight magazine which I enjoyed reading since I had learned about Leach years ago and was glad to see that his legacy lives on.

Back in our area, after another taxi ride men on the street started to whisper in our ear. Years ago when we first traveled in SE Asia drugs were offered by whispering as one walked by. Since we arrived it has been happening again BUT they are saying "Viagra" or "Cialis". Just because we have white hair they should not suppose too much. It is most disconcerting!! I am sure you all will laugh though. Wait until it happens to you! They are only trying to earn a living.

Of course between the time we arrived back in our area, and were desposited in front of Robinson's department store and this message, we got our fill of money changers and happy, wonderful policemen. After the days adventure it seems a perfect time to look for a beer.

Close encounters - rip-off artists and police in Manila

2009-11-10T02:03:00.003-08:00

We have had 2 great days since arriving in Manila and this afternoon was the most exciting. We are having a problem using ATM's as most banks only allow us to withdraw about $100 Cdn in pesos. Our bank in Canada charges $5 for that privilege. I must get BMO stock. We did better today at the main branch of HSBC which allowed us the equivalent of $900. Because we are heading to the smaller islands where there is little access to banks and money changers we needed to get some more cash.

We have US dollars with us and tried to change some at Citibank. Since we don't have an account here in the Philippines they don't allow this, so off we went to a black market money changer (as the bank officer recommended). On the Money Changer street we were led to a place by a man who offered us a great rate. The women who ran the place worked out the exchange, counted it asked us to count it too, and we exchanged money. No paper work!!

Nigel then went shopping and Geordie went back to the hotel where he counted his money again before putting it away. He was shocked to discover that by some brilliant sleight of hand he now had 10,000 fewer pesos than he was supposed to. Being good Canadians, we hadn't counted it a second time! Panic time! What to do?

Geordie ran off to find Nigel, calling him on the cell phones we had arranged yesterday and we met up easily. I felt that as good, trusting Canadians we should go to the police. The security guards at the shopping centre seemed reluctant to help, but finally gave us the phone number of the local station. One of the security guards suggested we needed a fixer! Rather than go out into the street and look for a likely big guy, I called and was told we needed to come to the station, so off we went and after realizing that the traffic was too bad we walked there and made our report.

After hearing our story, the police chief sent us off with two great policemen who were very funny but ready to get justice for us. When we arrived the police had us demand our money and then had a little chat with the woman, asking her name, and suggesting that she might want to make things right. Geordie did most of the talking and did not yell at all which often happens - he loses his cool easily.

The police pushed and demanded names. Meanwhile the woman was being a little sullen and looked unhappy, but was playing with her calculator. Finally she offered us P 8,500 to get rid of us. She said that she was doing this because the rate she offered was too much. I did not argue as I was getting most of it back. The police told her they were reporting her and it better not happen again. The 2 police men were great. We were laughing in the car and it was great traveling in the back of a police car. They used their siren to get cars out of our way and took us back to the station where the police chief made out a report to sign. He also gave us some good advice - never go to a money changer that doesn't have a name (ours was called Money Changer!) and always count your money after it's handed to you if the changer has had their hands on it after you've counted it the first time.

The two police officers who came with us were great. On the way back the driver started singing "Bay Boys", calling himself and his partner the bad boys who would protect us. They were very proud of themselves and told us that we were right to see them and that if we had any other problems to come back. They also showed us both their vision statement and their mission statement - which they followed to the letter - making sure the city was safe for its citizens.

So here we had money stolen and 50 years ago Geordie was pick pocketed of all his money the second day at the Boy Scout camp. I was left penniless. He too was taken care of in Manila although he did not get his money back. Nothing else bad happened during that trip so I suppose we are safe.

The people here really are quite wonderful, except those evil women. Everyone smiles. The little boys and young men call us Joe and ask us questions - "Where are you going?". They are just chatting and being friendly. When we go to a restaurant or coffee shop a second time we are treated like royalty. I am so glad that the money changer episode tuned out in a positive way as it shows that this country really is a great place to visit.

The Philippines

2009-11-08T03:30:00.002-08:00

I'm giving Geordie the first word on the blog this time. He deserves it as you will discover when you read his words. This trip is one he has longed for ever since he moved in with me in 1979. (Gee, only 30 years ago.) And here's Geordie!

We are now in Manila and it is the evening of Sunday, November 8!

Yesterday Friday we spent 25 hours between beds. Up at 7 am, traveled 19 hours and to bed in Manila at midnight. The international date line and a time zone change of 16 hours and it is all confusing. But if you think of us we while we are here we will be 16 hours ahead of you. So at 9 am PST it will be 1 am the next day here.

Our flight to Tokyo was 10 hours. We had 4 hours there and then the flight to Manila was 5 hours. That was much faster that my flight here 50 years ago to attend the Scouting World Jamboree in 1959! That flight took 45 hours with numerous refueling stops. It was before the era of jets. Our route from Vancouver was via Anchorage, Northern Japan, Tokyo, Okinawa and into Manila. I have be dragging Nigel around showing him "my Manila". Sure has changed. There are huge high rises and an LRT!

We are staying in the Malate district 3 blocks from Manila Bay. We used the LRT after breakfast to go to Intramuros, the old Spanish walled city and the Santiago Fort. The LRT was easy to figure out. The city within the walls was quiet in comparison to the rest of city. Most of that part of Manila was destroyed by WW II so the buildings are 1945+. We had lunch at the Manila Hotel on the Bay. It is still the classy hotel in the city. When I was billeted here after the camp I used the reception desk to change my travelers cheques. The people I was staying with had access to a Mercedes and a driver. So nice to glide up to the hotel door and have the car door opened by the door man. The meal today was quite a bit more expensive than our hotel room in the Malate area. It was a buffet of Filipino foods and very good.

Last night we were picked up at the airport. I had arranged that service through our hotel. After we checked in out we went into Saturday eve on the street near midnight. Lots of dancing girls and boys trying to get us into bars. This is not the best section of the city but certainly lively and very safe. Of course you would not expect us to be in the Ritz area would you? Nigel would not let me be out long as he wanted to go to sleep.

The last typhoon was 7 days ago and there is no sign of it. The place is dry, 30 C and 100% humidity. We were both very wet as we walked all over the place today.

It is 7:30 pm and we will now wander out for the evening. Planning to go to Max's Restaurant. It is a chicken place built in 1945 and I ate there in 1959 with my Filipino family. Hope the food is just as good as I remember it. After maybe Nigel will take me out on the town. He is sitting beside me now yawning so I bet that idea is not a go.

It is great being here and you will hear more from us. Nigel is planning to do his travel blog and he tells me he is going to post this message to it. Is that plagiarism?

The way home

2009-03-10T13:35:00.000-07:00

We are on the last day of our two months sojourn in Central America. Today Geordie made me walk a couple of kilometers to the old fort where we explored a little (admission free!), then we walked back through the local market, very busy with folk doing their shopping. Somehow the sight of fresh meat lying on a wooden counter in the full air often makes me think being a vegetarian just might be the better way, but tonight I think I´ll still have the Alabama style ribs for dinner. (Sorry James).

After our hot and dusty walk we got back to the park and hired a coach and two for another tour of the city, taking in many of the sites we´d seen already, but in the luxury of our own carriage with a coachman and two lovely hard working horses to do all the heavy work for us. The coachman acted as tour guide too, telling us about the important sites in Spanish as we travelled the streets.It was nice to be a tourist and to have other tourists taking photos of us as we drove by.

This has been a wonderful trip for us, We have enjoyed all the places we have seen, there have been no disasters, although we have had a couple of colds which have put us under the weather for a time. I also had a long lasting cough which I didn´t talk about. It got tiring. Geordie and I laughed (ruefully?) when we saw the sign on some building that said,"if you have had a cough for more than 15 days, you may have tuberculosis." Oh, I don´t think so. But yesterday at the market in Masaya I had a coughing fit that lasted for about 20 mintues. It was a little weird.

We did a tour of Masaya, the craft town near here yesterday all on our own. We walked down to the bus area and found one going to Masaya so hopped on and paid our 20 córdobas each for the pleasure of sitting on relatively comfortable seats. But we were dropped off on the highway, and pointed to the centre of town. It was a hot dusty walk, and part way there we took a taxi and asked the driver to take us to the lagoon side so we could see the volcano across the water. Then we walked back into town, wandered the large old stone fort that has been turned into the craft market (didn´t buy anything), then found the bus station (another long dusty walk to another big dusty field) where the bus was as usual waiting for us. This was not such a comfortable bus, an old Canadian school bus with very worn seats with stuffing hanging out, and thank heaven the windows open in these buses so that at least when we were moving there was a breeze to cool us down. This was a more local bus so stopped to pick up and drop off passengers where ever they wished. It dropped us in the bus area and we walked back to our hotel and had a nice soak in the pool later in the afternoon.

So tomorrow we go home. We have only six weeks then to prepare our bodies for the Camino because once again we are setting off to walk, in May and June. Some of you will be disturbed to know that we are planning to walk separately, I´m sure. But I have wanted to walk the Camino by myself and Geordie must go at the same time so he is considering continuing the walk he did on the Via de la Plata by himself a couple of years ago. We will also take the opportunity to visit with Bertrand and Giorgio in Torremolinos again too. How wonderful to have friends in far places.

We have certainly enjoyed our travels in Central America and I think we have been pleasantly surprised by Nicaragua. It seems the country has come out of it´s bloody war with a positive outlook on the future and less of a militaristic view than El Salvador. It compares in that way with Guatemala, although we have seen fewer guns here than we saw in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. We must remind ourselves though that most, if not all, of the guns we saw were for our protection, or the protection of those who re involved in money collection in some way or other, so it is in fact a safety feature.

You´ll be hearing from us after we get home. I will be looking forward to telling you about my plans for the camino, and sharing that journey with you too.

Thank you all so much for sharing our journey with us again. It has certainly been our pleasure and thank you for your encouragement of our messages as we travelled. It is so wonderful to be able to make these connections.

San Juan del Sur

2009-02-23T10:07:00.000-08:00

Let's see if I can write a short message... Hah! We arrived in San Juan del Sur yesterday and spent one night at a mid-range hotel which was comfortable if a little too cool because I set the air con on high and didn't change it when I realized we were freezing. It was an easier trip than most - a bus to Managua, a taxi across town, and then harassed by crazy bus people who all wanted us to go on their bus. Somehow we lucked out. We let a guy lead us to his bus which was a mini-bus, not a van, and paid for our trip to Rivas where we were going to transfer and it left two minutes later. That has happened a lot lately. When we got to Rivas the bus guy asked where we were going, and when we told him San Juan he gave us the good news that the bus continued on there with a side trip to San Jorge, where the ferry to the island of Ometepe leaves from. If we'd been going there we would have been delivered directly to the ferry.

So, lucky us, we stayed on the bus and got here in good time. Found our hotel, two blocks from the beach, which we had booked in advance and found out that there was a power outage so there was no air-con or light, nor could we check in yet because that couldn't happen till 2 o'clock. No problem, we went for a fish lunch - fresh from the bay I think. It was wonderful. Then we lazed around, found an icecream place and had a cone, then finally went back to our hotel and checked in. Nice big room, two single beds, clean, and just fine, and with two windows for a little breeze. No complaints, until the evening when I set that aircon after the electricity came on. We had a cool shower in the afternoon, then slept in the heat. Not bad.

This morning we went around looking for a cheaper hotel. Found a few, but they weren't great - bathroom outside, or a little untidy, no water in the little pool, etc. Then we decided to ask about the fancy place across from the beach. After chatting and negotiating a little we now have a room that almost everyone on our reading list would be happy to stay in. We have a huge room, two double beds, a fridge, a microwave, tv and cable, nice bathroom and a covered patio with a direct view to the beach and patio furniture, the patio is almost as big as our room, and the sun sets right in the center of the bay, so we will have wonderful sunset viewing. The only catch is we have to stay a week and we are paying more - $75.00 yes folks, we are paying the big bucks for a little luxury. It's a big change from our usual places, but we figured we've earned it with all the money we've saved in the cheap places. Oh and a full breakfast is included, as well as a pool that we can cool down in when things get too hot after a walk on the beach.

We're happy - although Geordie thinks I should book a week of Spanish school since there are a couple of recommended ones here. But I'm so lazy - I don't want to study.

Leon

2009-02-20T10:14:00.001-08:00

Today was almost easy. Woke up early, after having to put up with a bunch of drunks around the hot tub next to the kitchen, next to our room, but they shut up about 9:30 so we only had to listen to the noisy air con and a couple of screeches from the two huge scarlet macaws around the corner. Breakfast was included, tough eggs and ham, and gallo pinto - rice and beans, along with some white cheese and some well done toast and Butter! Haven´t had any of that for about two weeks.

We caught a taxi outside our hotel door to the bus terminal and the shared microbuses. We were almost the last to arrive, so we took off early, although I was crushed between two guys in the back row, and had to bend forward because there wasn´t enough head room - and I had my pack on my lap. Thank heaven my pack isn´t like the other backpackers around Central America. I can hold mine on my lap.

The ride might have been uneventful, except that the radiator on the van over heated and the driver had to walk up the road, twice to get water for it. The first lot boiled off I think - it was like being in a sauna for awhile. The people in the first three rows had to get out because the engine was under the seats. That took about 15 minutes and while we waited another van came up and the driver and about six passengers came over to act as sidewalk supervisors for the last bit.

But we got to Leon before 9, less than an hour, so I guess the guide book was wrong about its hour estimate, It would have been less than 45 minutes without the road trouble.

Leon is actually quite nice. We have a lovely hotel, although a little expensive for us, but it has air con, two beds, and a lovely sitting area outside our door with about four rocking chairs. Nice for reading of a late afternoon. We also asked for a lamp because again the light in the room is about 15 watts. I told the woman that we needed to read a lot, so had to have the lamp and she brought it right away. Very nice.

We´ve done a walkabout, had a rather weak coffee con leche, and now Geordie is back in the room, waiting for me to show up so we can go out again for lunch. I´m feeling a little peckish, but the choice of restaurants is much better than yesterday. Where we ate last night I ordered ribs with garlic and it came out with about a half cup of garlic spread all over. It was inedible, the fries (supposed to be mash) were cold and there were no "steamed vegetables". Geordie had some delicious deep fried chicken breast though so I shared his tasty food instead.

We´ll probably be here two nights. Apparently Saturday afternoon and evening there is action in the square, food, entertainment, people, so we will wander over to check it out. There are also a couple of museums including the one to Ruben Dario, the poet hero of Nicaragua. Apparently Nicas revere their poets above all. You can even by poems on the street wri

3 countries, 1 day, 7 vehicles

2009-02-20T10:13:00.000-08:00

Well we made it, even if it did take six hours and all those vehicles. We started across the street at the bus station at 7;20 am and got the bus out to El Amatillo right away, as usual. However, in the town of Santa Rosa de Lima, we were moved to another bus, although the money guy on the first bus paid the money guy on the second bus so we could travel on. Very honest - what would we have known.

In El Amatillo there were human vultures at the bus awaiting us. The driver waited until everyone was off the bus before he opened the baggage compartment, at which point we were swarmed with touts wanting us to take their tuk-tuks. We finally settled on one who gave us a price - the first said just a tip, yeah right - and then he drove us the two blocks to the immigration office. He waited there while we paid a little money to the El Salvador to get out, then went off with the tuk tuk driver, past the Honduran office and onto the minibus stop where we climbed in while our bags were tied on top.

The ride across Honduras took two hours, and it was very hot along the way. The travel thermometer read 38 at one point. At least the van windows were open. We both got the jump seats, which meant we were a little uncomfortable. But we weren´t being discriminated against, they were the last seats left which meant the bus got to leave.

In Guasale on the Honduran-Nicaragua border we got a pedi cab. A little guy sat on his bike seat in back and pedalled us sitting like queens in the front on a wicker seat as he took us first to the border crossing, where we got to pay more money to get into Nicaragua, then he pedalled us over the dirt road to the town of Guasale about 2 kilometers away where he dropped us off at the next minibus stop where again we left quite quickly as the seats were now full -but we got better seats.

Along the way into Chinandega we saw a smoking volcano called San Cristobal. We also saw sugar cane fields, - Nicaragua is famous for its rum made from the cane: Flor de Caña. There were cattle, sheep and pigs too. And I saw a cane truck with five trailers - just like a train, but on it´s own road thank heaven. The first km of the road were under construction so we didn´t make good time. All the bridges were being redone as well as the roads. It was a pleasure to make it to the real pavement. The last vehicle we got was a taxi in Chinandega to take us to our hotel. The most expensive part of the trip - the pedicab ride. Geordie felt guilty about the kid cycling us so gave him 12 dollars and a bag of Quesitos - Central American cheezies.

We managed to cahnge money at the border too, and when we got to Chinandega we found a bank that took Cirrus so we have Cordobas now and can have dinner. Too bad there are so few restaurants. We walked blocks and blocks and saw no place that could honestly call itself a restaurant. The closest was a place on the street that was frying potatoes and had some fried chicken ready. Well there was a place which uses steam tables, but it is recommened to eat there when the food is fresher - closer to mealtimes, and it was already after 2 pm when we made it.

So now we have to figure out where to have dinner. That should be fun. There are two restaurants listed on our guide, so we will have to look for them.

Oh, remember that I told you this was the safest place in Central America? Well as we were walking down the street, there were two women ahead of us. Suddenly a young man ran up to one of them, then grabbed her necklace from around her neck then ran off, while she reached up to her neck, yelled Puta - whore - and yelled. Then several people made after him while he jumped on his getaway vehicle - his friend was waiting in the street with a bike with those pegs that stick out for a passenger to stand on on the back wheel. We don´t know whether they caught him because we didn´t wait to find out. So much for safety. But hey, no one drew a gun. The place feels much safer than San Miguel did last night, though.

Think Chinandega will only merit one night. We are off to Leon tomorrow for a couple of days and then will head off looking for a nice beach place soon that we can hang out at again to watch the surfers.

3 countries, 2 days - Day 1

2009-02-18T13:08:00.000-08:00

We are on our way. Today was the easy part, we are still in El Salvador so really tomorrow is going to be 3 countries, 1 day, if everything works out. We got up at 7;30 and had breakfast by 8;15, then after paying our bill, we headed out to walk up the road (5 mintues) to the highway. Let´s see, the wait for the bus was maybe 3 minutes. That was easy.

We arrived in La Libertad, then walked up the street to the bus stop, 2 minutes. We had to wait a bit for the bus to fill up but when it did we headed off. The drive back to San Salvador took longer than we remembered but this time the driver didn´t pull any guy off his ladder. We had a little tour of San Salvador´s back streets, and then were dumped unceremoniously on some street near the bus station, but there was a taxi there waiting (15 secs transfer time.), so we just hopped in that and got whisked to the other bus station across town. There we got out, walked in to the entrance and were immediately met by a guy asking where we were going. And after 30 seconds we were on the bus to San Miguel - today´s destination. The bus left five minutes later. We were very lucky because this was the Super Especial - which cost 5 bucks per person for the 2 hour ride with air con and two violent movies to entertain the children. We arrived at the SM bus station at 1;15 or so. Total time travelling, 4 hours and 10 minutes, total time on our feet - 10o minutes and 45 seconds give or take a minute.

San Miguel is not a tourist destination we think. We walked through the crowds to the very crowded market, past the church which was closed. The market had lots of people trying to sell us pants and shirts. Better than in La Libertad where I decided I had better do some serious weight loss when the woman who accosted us tried to seel me a bra. A nice red bra, maybe it was Valentine´s Day come to think of it.

We had lunch at the Pollo Campero across the street from our hotel. We are also directly across the street from the bus station, very convenient. We could use the swimming pool while watching the buses depart - it´s directly across from the bus exit, so well situated. Pollo Campero is El Salvador´s answer to Kentucky Fried Chicken. Apparently El Salvadoreans returning to the US make Pollo Campero their last stop so they can bring some back to friends and family. It´s actually better than Kentucky Fried - not all those 11 herbs and spices making it taste funny. We liked it.

Now it´s back to our air con room - this town is very hot, I swear it´s at least 35 C out there - definitely over a 100 F. Our room also had a good view of the bus station so we are perfectly set. The town is aid to be dangerous after dark, especially the bus station area so we will just hang out here thank you and stay happily inour room till dinner time and then until breakfast time.

Tomorrow our plan is to get the bus to the border with Honduras, a minibus across to the Nicaragua border (about two hours) then another bus to Chinandega. If all goes well we will probably send our next message from there.

3 countries, 2 days - day 1

2009-02-18T13:02:00.002-08:00

3 countries, 2 days - day 1

2009-02-18T13:02:00.001-08:00

3 countries, 2 days - day 1

2009-02-18T13:02:00.000-08:00

Playa El Tunco still

2009-02-13T12:29:00.000-08:00

Today was the day we were going to move on, but a couple of days ago we convinced ourselves that we didn´t need to go anywhere. The Tortuga Surf Lodge is very small, only five rooms, but what a great group of people we´ve been hanging out with. Two of them turned out to be people we met at La Casa del Mundo on Lake Atitlan, and another two were a couple from Denmark. The last group is two guys from the US who are great to hang out with too.

It was nice to have the Danish couple, they turned out to be doctors which was great when I came down with a bad case of turista which had me hugging a toilet bowl at 2 am on our second day there. They were able to provide some good replacement drinks so I spent the next day drinking two liters of water mixed with the rehydration salts and feeling much better. I have no idea what caused the malady - the day it happened I´d had only breakfast, then a fresh coconut and for dinner only two ravioli, although by that time I was already feeling ill.

No matter, I´m great now. The reason for the odd meal that day was that Dean, one of the Americans invited us to join him on a tour of the area with a local guy who was his surf instructor. We went down to a couple of beach areas and then he asked if we wanted to go to a National Park nearby, which we agreed to. It turned out to be a hiking park, so with a guide leading us we were taken on a two kilometer tour, which went first to a natural cave with resident bats, then up a hill to a lovely viewpoint then down into a river basin and back to the start. The walk led through two totally different environments. On the first half, on the east side of the hill the trees were leafless and spare, very dry. These trees leave their leaves in the "summer" which is now in El Salvador. The other side of the hill is bright with lots of green vegetation and huge trees, which keep their leaves all year round. Very unique landscapes.

Last night we had a great meal at our place. Marko, the guy from Holland whom we´d met before, made a great barbecue with help from Dean. I got to fold the large foil dishes to roast the vegetables. We had local sausages and some deep dark tuna which Marco had bought in the market that day - two huge fish for five dollars each plus a dollar for cleaning them. Quite the deal. He made the barbecue sauce for the fish with lots of garlic, ginger, soy and olive oil and a lashing or two of Marie Sharpe´s BEWARE hot sauce which contains a warning not to use it to play tricks on the weak or elderly. Delicioso.

So we have decided to hang on here for a few more days. There´s no rush. Marco and Anna, Dean and Gordon leave on Sunday and Monday, the Danes left this morning, so we will have to expect new guests to arrive to entertain us. So far we are the only non surfers around. This is a great surfing beach and there are lots of young guys and women with incredibly toned and tanned bodies hanging out waiting for the next great wave, so we expect to see the three couples replaced very quickly. Let´s hope they are as much fun to hang out with.

As you can see there´s not much to write about. We are still lazing around the pool, eating fish, sleeping, reading - what else do we need?

Playa El Tunco - by bus

2009-02-09T13:50:00.000-08:00

We were on the move today. Four buses! We left Juayua at 8:30 am for the first trek to Sonsonate, about an hour. Then we waited about a half hour for a non-existent bus to San Salvador. Well the sign in the terminal had the right number and the right destination, but no buses came, and since they are supposed to be every 10 minutes, I finally figured out that there must be a problem and asked the young woman sitting next to me at the bus stop if she was awaiting the same bus. Oh, no, the bus was somewhere over there, outside the terminal.

We walked over to the street, saw no sign of a bus, but then I caught sight of another fancy building. Checked it out and discovered it was the special terminal for buses to San Salvador only. Duh! That wasn´t in the guide book. So we arrived across the street and there was a bus just loading - an especial which costs more and is theoretically safer because it doesn´t stop to pick up fares. (Hah! It did so.) But it was air conditioned and there was a seat for each of us, no sharing tiny school bus seats.

The ride to San Salvador took an hour and a half and pulled into the terminal Occidente. Luckily this is where we were to catch our next bus although the guide book said we had to go outside the front of the building to catch it. We did that, and saw no evidence of our bus, so asked someone this time, who directed us across the street and up, next to that girl with the pink shirt. We were also told it was bus 22 not 102, but in fact the 102 pulled up and we all got on to go to La Libertad. That trip took about 40 minutes - not bad, although it was getting hotter now. About half way there we could already see the ocean. Yay!

In La Libertad we got out, walked down the street, around the corner and found the bus to the beaches. We had to get on through the back emergency door, because there were too many people at the front for us to manage with. No problem. This bus took only about 15 minutes to get us to Playa El Tunco, our destination, and a little walk down towards the beach, and a side street and we were at Tortuga Surf Lodge and our nice little room on the second floor, bathroom outside the door, but private, and a big terrace with two tables and a hammock and no other rooms so I guess we can choose the table we want.

Entire length of journey: 4 hours. No of buses: 4, price: $5.40 for two people. Not bad.

Now we are going to hang out for awhile. Not much to do I don´t think, except sun, swim in the pool, maybe paddle in the ocean, (there are lots of surfers here, so may not be a good swimming beach) eat fish, sleep, relax, enjoy the air con room. Veg out.

mmmm, sounds nice.

Juayua

2009-02-07T12:19:00.001-08:00

Yesterday we took a bus to the town of Ahuachapan on the way to Ataco, a little village up in the mountains. It{s the first village on the Ruta de las Flores and is a lovely ride up into the mountains. The fare for the entire trip (2 and a half hours) was $2.80 cents. All the bus connections were fine and we didn{t have any waiting around. The buses go constantly - every 10 minutes or so. Amazing. In Ahuachapan we were let off in the very busy market and had to walk through the closed in aisles to find the terminal on the other side. But there was the bus to Ataco and off we went.

Ataco is quite small and although there were several hotels listed we went first out to the highway to a place recommended out of town. But we didn{t like the idea of walking back to there in the dark after eating so we decided not to stay. Back in town we saw a sign for The hotel El Balcon de Ataco so walked up there - up a quite steep hill, where we found a quite nice room with an amazing view of the town and the surrounding mountains. Of course it meant that every time we left we had to go back up hill to get home.

The town had very little going on. We couldn{t find any of the other hotels listed, and none of the restaurants - although we did manage to find a place to eat. It was a "fusion" restaurant and we had a huge bowl of cream of tomato soup full of oregano leaves - way too many oregano leaves. A little too much. But the place was very nice - we sat out in the breezy garden amongst the flowers to enjoy our meal. Walked around town - the people were friendly, saying Buenas tardes (good afternoon), but there ain{t much to do.

We did find a gem of a place - a real coffee shop with delicious coffee well made from local Salvadorean coffee beans. This is coffee country with coffee fincas up the hillsides, all of it shade grown and maybe it{s even organic. We had a lovely orange cake with it, sprinkled with lime peel. Delcioso.

Supper was at the same place we had lunch because the other place we had found was closed for dinner. This time Geordie had pork marinated in red wine and herbs served with mashed potatoes while I had beef in a pineapple sauce served with ratatouille and little tiny potatoes about the diameter of a nickel. Lovely flavours.

This morning we got up latish after watching Spanish TV news (from Spain I mean). Lots of snow in northern Spain I guess. I hope Giorgio and Bertrand in Torremolinos don{t have it too cold. We went out with our packs and stopped at the restaurant that was closed last night. The woman who greeted us mentioned something about breakfast, I said si and the next thing we knew we had ordered it. I really have a hard time understanding El Salvadorean Spanish, so we get things we hadn{t planned for because I say si as if I understood. Breakfast was scrambled eggs with tomato, cheese, fried bananas and refried beans witha nice bread bun and coffee and only cost $3.25 each so I guess we can{t complain.

We had lots of help at the bus stop where we waited for the bus to Juayua. And when the bus arrived we were pointed to it right away. People are really very friendly. (Oh and I didn{t see anyone with a gun anywhere in town.) Our bus ride was lovely only a half hour but on a beautiful road with checkerboard coffee plantations going up the hillsides of the volcanoes. There was a long line of these lovely young volcanoes along the way and they surround the town of Juayua. There are at least eight of them I{m sure. Some of them are very pointy.

Juayua is very busy on weekends. It{s a gastronomes dream come true because they have a weekend long Gastronomic fair. The area around the square and the church and for several blocks radiating out are food stalls with hot food of all kinds. Chicken in Chicha, roast beef on the grill, argentinian ribs, tacos, pupusas (stuffed corn tortillas), roast rabbit, even frogs legs! It{s an amazing experience. WE walked around and around to decide, and finally chose the argentinian ribs with salad, roast green onions, and rice. It was tasty. Tonight maybe we{ll have rabbit or frogs!

This keyboard is exhausting my fingers. the keys stick like crazy and you may have noticed the odd apostrophes. Time to hit send.

San Salvador

2009-02-05T17:51:00.000-08:00

We left Suchitoto this morning. Sad. We had made friends with some of the locals. The transportation was a Blue Bird school bus from Brampton, Ontario. When their life span is over in Canada they are sold to Latin America! The seat was not wide enough for both of us so half of my bum was over air. We were supposed to continue traveling west to the highlands and probably cold weather but I suggested as we neared San Salvador than we could stay in the big, bad city for a night. So taxi to the Zona Rosa area (upscale) and a small boutique hotel for more money than we have paid on this trip.

I have to go to the bathroom now so Nigel will continue.

San Salvador is described as dangerous, but the Zona Rosa seems safe enough. The fact that every business seems to have an armed guard may explain that. Our hotel has a guy with a shotgun, but he also does the sweeping out front and opens the door for us. Might as well be useful. After we arrived we were a little peckish so went across the street to an Argentinian place for an empanada which was delicioso. The door had to be unlocked by the armed guard of course, so we felt quite safe there too.

The main reason we chose this hotel is because it is so near the important museums. After we arrived we walked uphill past the Sheraton to the Museum of Modern Art which is very large and displays in its four salas, a retrospective of Salvadorean art from the early 20th century to very recent times. I can´t remember the names of any of the artists, but there was some fine work which I would be glad to see hanging on the walls of the Vancouver Art Gallery. Of course we didn´t stay that long - it´s not so hard to go through four rooms of art if you´re just looking.

We had lunch after our art foray at a little French bakery (we´re going international here), and supper tonight was at a place called Baselia (after the city of Basel in Switzerland) where Geordie had Italian pizza. I had fish - a little more local.

After lunch we went directly to the Museum of Anthropology which has much the same stuff as any good Latin American museum - lots of precolumbian art and pottery, displays on pyramids and other ruins, a display of artisanal work, and a religious section which included precolumbian, Roman Catholic, Protestant and Jewish artifacts. It was worth the $3.00 price -glad it wasn´t expensive like the museum at Copan Ruinas, which cost $15.00 per person.

Tomorrow we are off to the highlands where we will probably be too cold again. We are going to stay in Ataco for one night and then two nights in Juayua (Why-you-Ah) which is famous for it´s food fair on weekends. And we will be there for Saturday and Sunday nights. Then it´s off to the beach and too much heat there I think. It´s been quite windy the last few days, in Suchitoto and here.
Apparently it was even more windyon the Pacific coast. We met a group of four women who were sitting at a table near us in Suchitoto who sounded awfully Canadian. When we talked to them, it turned out they were all from Qualicum Beach, and one of them owned a hotel on one of the beaches down there and had heard about the winds.

Ya Suchitoto (Still Suchitoto)

2009-02-03T09:17:00.001-08:00

Oh, we just can´t get up and leave. Suchitoto may be hot, but we are not really in the pink of health so today we moved hotels - more expensive yes, but with two beds so we don´t have to worry about disturbing each other as we toss and turn. The woman who checked us in bargained us into a fancy room with two beds, with a deal for two nights. And there is air conditioning and cable (not that we will watch it since there is probably no English language station).

I have developed a bit of turista so need to be close to a decent bathroom too. As a matter of fact the turista developed after a meal at the hotel we just moved from - bad chicken? It was the special of the weekend - one would think it ok. Anyway, Suchitoto is pretty, and we have enjoyed sitting in the square - last night it was lovely and breezy there after the sun went down.

We ate at an expensive hotel a couple of blocks from the square - quite an impressive place with lovely stonework, lots of greenery, and down at the bottom of the property a nice pool to admire. There even seemed to be other guests - we do feel like the only tourists most of the time. We are even being recognized by the locals now as we sit in the square for a nice coffee at a little cafe under the portales.

We have not yet decided what to do after this. We may go to San Salvador for a couple of nights, but really the guide book says it´s a little dangerous. So is Santa Ana, and Sonsonate, all places we will have to pass through to get to the safer villages. We don´t know what unsafe means, but even here yesterday, when the guy who delivers the cigarettes came to the square to do a delivery, he was accompanied by two armed guards. One went into the shop with him while the other stood guard at the truck. I guess there are reasons for that.

The currency here is the American dollar so we can tell what kind of value we are getting for our money. Geordie´s coffee this morning was only 30 cents, but a bagel and egg sandwich in this cafe is $2.50. And our toast, jam, coffee and juice this morning were $3.00 each. Our new room is $36.00, so expensive, but it´s nice to have the comforts.

Suchitoto

2009-02-02T14:05:00.001-08:00

We made it to El Salvador - this is a first for us since we had visited Guatemala and Honduras before, and so far things are very nice. We were cold in Santa Rosa de Copan even with our nice room and the comfortable beds - I didn´t find the extra blankets until we were getting ready to leave, but we managed without them.

After our "tipico" breakfast of scrambled eggs, beans, cheese and plantains, we had the woman of the B and B help us get a taxi which consisted of her taking us into the street and hailing a cab then negotiating the rate - only 24 lempira instead of the 40 we paid to get to her place. We got to the bus station about 8:15 but learned that the next bus to the border at Nueva Ocotepque would not be along until 9 or 9:30 so we settled in at the restaurant to read and wait. I had some of the worst coffee ever, god knows what they made it with - but certainly not the prime coffee they export. There were two other tourists in the restaurant waiting - two young men from Sweden whose packs were about three times bigger than ours. Ah, the young. They do need educating.

The bus arrived at 9:45, even later than expected but we were helped on and our bags stowed beneath because this was a real bus, not some old school bus converted to people carrier. The drive to Ocotopeque lasted over two hours, though spectacular mountain scenery, along twisting turning roads with only a couple of areas of avalanche (there had been more on the trip to Santa Rosa). The mountains are very numerous, if that´s not an odd thing to say. And sometimes the views into the valleys were dizzying.

We made it to Ocotepeque without incident and then were taken in hand by another passenger, a younger man who led us to the little shuttle that would take us to the border. And that was really easy to cross. We didn´t even have to check in with Honduras authorities, just walk up to the El Salvadorean guy, hand him our passport and then continue walking into the village of El Poy and the next bus station. The guy chatted us up as he went and we soon learned that he had lived in LA for a while, as an illegal alien, and then a year and a half in prison for drugs and could no longer go to the states, since he was no longer welcome there. My, my... We also asked him what he did in San Salvador where he was living and the answer was "Nothing". He didn´t need to work because other family were living and working in the states and sent money home so he didn´t need to work. A different view of how the leisure class developed...

The bus towards San Salvador, the capital of the country, left about 15 minutes after we arrived at the dirt lot where it was waiting. Here the buses are actually numbered and ply routes like they were city buses. No 119 was going all the way to the capital but we wanted to get off and transfer at a town called Aguilares, so depended on the bus conductor to let us know. As we left El Poy we started to take on more passengers - and yes this bus was a converted school bus, with an engine that needed a little work. But we didn´t have to share our kiddy seats with anyone else, even though the aisle of the bus filled up with passengers as we went. They actually cleared out after awhile and even though there were still standing passengers there weren´t that many.

As we passed though the town of La Palma we were very impressed with the decorations they have put on every building and even every light pole and electrical pole along the way. An artist (last name Llort) started painting in this primitive style then taught the villagers so that now every one paints everything, and they sell their wares around the country. The style is simple, with bright bold colours, depicting birds, village houses, animals, mountains, saints, village women. The electrical poles are painte up about 7 feet - as high as they can reach, and it is very charming. All the poles were decorated even a few kilometers outside the village, but when we passed out of their reach, the poles were still painted but only the colours of the flag with a political parties initials. Not nearly so pretty.

Again this drive was wonderful and we could see far ahead and below miles and miles away a huge lake, which we knew we were heading to. At Aguilaries we alighted and then asked a number of people where we would get the bus to Suchitoto and got a number of different answers. We decided we would walk the half kilometer to the intersection and wait there. It had gotten very very hot by this time - not at all like Santa Rosa. We waited under a tree with two women who were dressed much like ladies of the night, although they may have been ordinary citizens. After about 10 minutes a truck came by and picked up the two women and then the two guys in the truck asked if we wanted to climb in the back of the truck with the dogs since they were going through Suchitoto to their own destination. Of course we know all about accepting rides from strangers, but hey they were going to Suchitoto so we hopped in the back and joined the two scared looking dogs there. After a few minutes the women were dropped off at someone´s house so we got invited into the back seat of the truck which had delicious air conditioning. One of the guys turned out to be a Salvadorean who had just arrived recently from Chicago - he was there during the inauguration of Obama and talked about the excitement there. Don´t know if he was deported too.

So we arrived in Suchitoto in some style. We were let off at a service station and walked a couple of blocks uphill till we came to a little square. We wondered if it was the main square although it seemed a little less than busy, but since we were hot, we sat down in the shade of a building and rested. A mnute later three Tourist police bicycled by and a few minutes after that another one came out of a building nearby and introduced himself to us. He was very friendly, and asked all about us, where we were from, where we were going, welcomed us to El Salvador and then told us how to get to the real main square which was about five blocks away.

We made it there, and of course it was much busier than our little plaza with shops, restaurants, lots of people and even a little artisanal fair going on, since it was Sunday. Oh, wait, first we were met by a woman who wanted to show us her hotel, so dragged us about three blocks away. Her place was ok, with nice big rooms, but there was only one paltry little fan and we thought we would be uncomfortable so said no, even though she really really wanted us to stay. It would have only cost 14 dollars but...

So at the square we made for another hotel, where we looked at some tiny rooms, and even though the other woman´s place was probably better, took it because it had airconditioning. A blessed relief. The bed nearly fills the room but is only a double so we really were obviously desperate for air con. The bed is also very soft and squooshy, feels a bit like a water bed and the sheets slide off. But it has air con...and we used it. Today we almost decided to go to the other woman´s place since we had disappointed her so and the room was so much bigger, but air con won out again.ç

The square was quite busy yesterday since it was a weekend. The little stalls are sponsored by the town council and have the motto: "No solo a ciudad...una feria artesanal" or Not ony a city, but an artisan´s fair! The city fathers are obviously proud of the work they are doing to promote their city and the place is very clean too. And those tourist police.... Nice place. The buildings are all colonial in style with white adobe walls and roof beams that stick out with the tiled roofs extending to give some shade. There is also a lot of ornamental iron work decorating the doors and windows - seems they have that to beautify their homes rather than the painted walls of La Palma.

Today we walked out towards the lake and found a couple of places with stupendous views. The first was on the right side of the road and had a wonderful pool we could use, if we wanted, as well as a nice cool restaurant with lots of fans. The view there was of the lake far below and the distant hills. We had a cool drink there and then went a little further down the road to a restaurant on the other side of the road, and damned if they didn´t have a view of the lake too. Seems the hill we are on is between arms of the lake so both places can provide some beautiful scenery while one eats or drinks.

We´ve had a little nap now, in our cool air con place, and are out again in the heat. I´ll finish this off and call Geordie in to read it. In the meantime, thanks to the people who responded to our last message, It´s nice to get news from home and abroad, And you don´t have to worry about writing because of expense. Internet here is really cheap, probably a dollar an hour so we can afford to read your messages.

Take care all, and you´ll be hearing from us. We may well go into San Salvador tomorrow or the next day and then go out to travel towards La Ruta de las Flores, the route of the flowers to see some of the lovely villages along there before we head to the heat of the coast and some ocean breezes. Let´s hope the breezes are enough, although no doubt a little air con will be available. It had better be.

Santa Rosa de Copan

2009-01-31T16:13:00.000-08:00

It´s cool here in Santa Rosa. We are spending time in the internet to help pass the time because there ain´t much to do. We arrived here about 10:30 am after an easy two bus rides from Copan, quicker than we thought. The first ride was in a colectivo van, nice and new, and only as many people as there were seats. Geordie was directed to a seat in the back but made me tell the guy in Spanish that he would ¨vomitar¨if he sat there, so they let him sit up front with the driver instead.

We left at 8;20 and were in La Entrada at 9:50 am where we were dropped off at the madhouse of a bus field (not quite a terminal although they called it that). We had competing offers for buses to Santa Rosa, each claiming to be the faster - we were practically being dragged to the buses. We hesitated though and after almost going on the old school bus, opted for the more "modern" but equally old highway bus. And guess what, it was the one which left first and didn´t stop at every corner for passengers. Looks like we lucked out for a change. It was almost comfortable except for the broken arm rest - and Geordie wasn´t happy with the woman standing up next to him rubbing her thigh against his leg. She only had two fingers on her left hand and was not a young ducky, so he may have misinterpreted her intentions. Well, he says she wasn´t even aware of it. The bus was full and had standees from the back to almost the front of the bus. We haven´t travelled like this in ages. Ah, the good old days.

In Santa Rosa we took a taxi up to a hotel that was recommended in Lonely Planet. The ride cost more than the trip from La Entrada for one person. Maybe they saw the gringos coming. The hotel is actually a B and B with only four rooms and is a converted house. Quite pleasant, with big large beds which are comfortable, a living room where we can sit and read and we have ordered breakfast tomorrow for 7:30. We had first ordered it for 8:30 but after a walk around town, realized that we didn´t need to stay any longer so could get on our way early. We did a little walk up to the central park and beyond, looking for a pizza place that came well recommended. That´s where we are going to eat, sorry all you foodies. For lunch though we had roasted chicken, Peruvian style -which brought back memories of some of the small towns we stopped at in Peru where roast chicken was the most easily found food. Tasty, and the french fries were good, made with real potatoes and fried a la minute.

Tomorrow we are off to El Salvador. We have to catch a bus to the border town from here, and then a bus to the Honduran border, do the formalities, then walk to the El Salvador border and a bus from there into El Salvador itself. We will probably change buses somewhere off there to get to the town we are heading to, if we manage to get all that done right. We´ll find a bed somewhere anyway.

Ruinas and Guns

2009-01-30T15:06:00.001-08:00

We climbed pyramids today, without coughing, so we must be getting better. We got up nice and early, to discover there was no electricity - it was not on again until 3 pm. We had been expecting that since the last time we were here we lived with lack of electricity everywhere we went because of rotating power outages. I think they've fixed some of those problems, but obvioulsy it's not perfect.

It was a nice walk to the site though, about 15 minutes along a stone path, past a couple of stelae and then into the park and to the entrance where we were met with a flock of squawking Scarlet Macaws. They are so beautiful but so noisy. They are always there since they are fed. We think they may even have hutches on the site where they sleep at night. However, they are free to fly around - I guess they know when they've got it good.

The site of these Mayan ruins is very large and is famed for its sculptural works. The stelae are tall stones, which have been carved, many with human figures in ceremonial headdresses, often on one or two sides, while the other sides are covered with Mayan heiroglyphic writing which tells the reader about the ruler therein extolled. These are unlike any other sculptural works in the mayan world so are indeed a precious historical resource. As I mentioned in the last email, many of the originals are in the museum but the copies on site are faithful to the original so do give one the real flavour. One of the most important things on the site though is the Heiroglyphic Stairway which was found intact for the bottom 15 steps, but in a jumble above. The stairs were reconstructed but it is unlikely that the top tiers were restored in the correct order so it is still a task to decipher everythng. Luckily those bottom 15 stairs give lots of etail. It is indeed a magnificent site.

We wandered around the ball courts where the warriors played a rubber ball game, and might be sacrificed if they lost. Tell that to the NHL. I guess it could mean the loss of some good players though so seems very unsensible. How did they learn to improve? Of course it may have been considered glorious to be sacrificed, so who knows.

We only spent about two hours at the site wandering over the pyramids, up to the tops, some still covered with huge trees which have been allowed to grow or have not been cleared. There are often lots of temples which have been cleared so one can see how imposing the place would have been in its full glory.

And now for something completely different. This is a wild west town, and it feels very odd to walk around among all the cowbows in town. All the men seem to wear blue jeans, big white hats and many of them have big rodeo buckle belts. I don't know whether they do rodeo, but the belts can be bought in the market, so one doesn't have to be a bull rider to own one. These guys don't pack guns, but there are also lots of guns around. Outside the coffee shop where we enjoyed coffee today, there is a bank which is watched over by the hawkeyes of four guards. Two of them stand guard across the street, one of them right outside the window, with huge shotguns at the ready. A third stands outside the door with his shotgun and the fourth carries only a wand metal detector and a pistol on his hip.

And not only that, but there's a clothing store near the square, where on the first day I saw a guy standing at the door wearing a pistol tucked into the front of his pants. It would not do to act suspicious, and I don't know what would happen if someone tried to shoplift a hat or something. We are keeping our fingers to ourselves.

We are off tomorrow for a little interior city called Santa Rosa de Copan. We will take a bus first to a town called La Entrada from whence we will transfer to another bus heading there - we expect. It will take about four or five hours depending on the number of times the bus has to stop to pick up passengers. From there we are making our way to the El Salvador border to cross there and start exploring that country.

Copan Ruinas

2009-01-29T12:30:00.000-08:00

After our arrival here we havent been in too much of a rush to do things. We arrived early as we said, but later in the day had one of those hotel problems we come across every now and then. There was no water. For about five hours. We went off checking other places which did indeed have water, so it was just our hotel. One of the problems was that we couldn't find any body around our hotel to talk too. We have to go off to the corner restaurant where we were told that there was a problem with the cistern and it would be fixed "ahorita" - really soon. Well, we went off, came back a half hour later and there was still no sign of water, so we found someone else and told her that if the water wasn't fixed by 6:30 pm we were moving. Got back at 6:30 and there had been action - we had water so we were happy again. The cistern was ful and we could flush our toilet, and there,s even hot water.

Yesterday was our visit to the museum and we certainly enjoyed it. There is a full replica of the temple which was found beneath the present temple in the ruins themselves. It has many stucco carvings which represent macaws, and gods or deities as well as some human figures. The buidling is painted in brilliant reds, greens and whites. all colours that were found on the original when it was discovered. Apparently the temple was considered so holy that it was decided to bury it instead of destroying it to make a new temple.

There are many other sculptures in the musuem which have been moved from the site to protect them for the elements and perhaps the unsavory. These have been replaced by replicas so when we go see them tomorrow, they will add to the awe this site inspires. I took lots of pictures of the originals though and so far I havenñt managed to delete any more photos by accident.

This morning we went out to Macaw Mountain which is a bird sanctuary about 15 minutes out of town by tuk tuk. It{s a wonderful site, down in a little river valley, surrounded by high cliffs. All the birds here have been rescued or donated. The owners do not capture birds, but protect them. There were many macaws - scarlet, blue and gold brazilian ones, and green winged macaws as well as many many parrots. Also in some of the very large cages that have been constructed there are a number of toucans ' including the ones with the multicolour beaks and the yellow fronts. They are wonderful clown like but also very beautiful birds.

There{s even an old swimming hole at the site and we can go back if we wish to swim there over the next couple of days. We probably won{t but it sounds nice.

We had a very interested place for dinner our first night. We met the two guys from Frankfurt and all four of us went out to dinner at Carnitas Nia Loa. There we began by attempting to order a couple of drinks. It was happy hour so we thought we could make one order and get two drinks. Not quite. The woman arrived with eight drinks ' four run and coke and four cranberry and coke. So we all got two drinks each and enjoyed the different flavours. The food was tasty ¿ it{s a meat place, so I had steak and Geordie had something like fajitas with strips of meat, green peppers and onions. No vegetables though.

We are off to the ruins tomorrow, to see the site in it{s enirety. I{m looking forward to it, even if I do have to get up early so we can have breakfast and get to the site nice and early so we don{t get overheated. We are both still fighting our colds. Hey maybe it really is dengue fever. Lots of coughing, but we hav}en{t had any of those odd taste sensations that our friend Joanna had when she got dengue in India. But I{ve had a headache most of the time which is annoying. But I am coping not to worry.

In Honduras

2009-01-27T12:47:00.000-08:00

Yes, we survived our three thirty am wake up call and our van arrived on time to take us to Copan. We drove past Guatemala City in the dark and were glad we weren´t going in, because that could add a lot of time to a trip. We think that every truck in Guatemala was on the highway though, and our driver had few qualms about passing six or seven of them at at time. Looks like we were on the main road to the Caribbean side port town so the trucks were hauling lots of freight, and of course there´s no railway.

I actually slept for part of the journey early on because I had the back seat to myself and could lean up against the luggage stored on the rest of it. I woke up after daylight and enjoyed the amazing scenery on the way. I also had a lovely conversation about travel (what else?) with the two german men who I noticed were wearing matching rings. And if that weren´t enough, one of them went to sleep in the other´s lap. Very sweet. I hope we run into them again - they´ve have traveled a lot too and I´m sure could give us a few ideas.

Border formalities were pretty simple. Our driver rushed us off our van to beat the fancy Hedman Alas pullman bus that was just ahead of us. We did it too. First we had to check out of Guatemala which cost us 10 quetzals each (about $1.50), and then we had to enter Honduras which cost 25 quetzals each. AFter that we negotiated to change all the rest of our quetzals into Honduran Lempira which is about double Quetzals. The prices seem similar to Guatemala too - a drink which might cost 10 Q costs 20 L, so it will be easy to convert. When we get to El Salvador we get to deal in dollars, and then in Nicaragua we will switch to Cordobas. Hmmm - maybe these guides need to have a little chat with the European Union.

We emailed the hotel we are staying in to request a reservation - word is that they had a power outage yesterday so didn´t see any mail. That reminds us of the last time we were here when they were rationing power. Copan where we are now, had no power from midnight to 6 am then, which meant the fans were not much good to us. However, this is a different season and I think the evenings will be a little cooler.

Our room is quite colourful. We have red tiled floors, blue bedspreads, the walls are yellow orange till about a foot from the ceiling where there is a strip of Aqua blue and then the ceiling is pink. Think we´ll rest comfortably with all those colours competing?

Today we just wandered around town a little. We had a coffee first and a really nice biscuit - two shortbreak like cookies sandwiching some Dulce de Leche caramel. Yum. We got to town earlier than expected so we even decided to have a nap before going out after the coffee. Then we did a little wandering, got some money from the bank machine (we were worried about that after our experience in Monterrico where there was no ATM that would take our card. Lunch was at a very local place where we had pupusas, which are a Salvadorean specialty. They are tortillas stuffed with a choice of fillings, including squash and flowers. We did not go so exotic and had chicken and bean fillings although Geordie did have some chicharron with his beans - that´s crispy pig fat I think. It tasted nice and porky.

We are going to head to the Ruins Museum tomorrow. It is new and was not here when we visited last. The guide books suggest visiting it first. We may do things a day at a time. Today we looked at the little local museum. Tomorrow the big museum, next day the ruins themselves, if we can keep ourselves out of them since we will be right there after the museum visit. There is another ruin site not too far away and there is also a bird park with lots of macaws and other exotic birds flying around, and a butterfly farm too, so we have lots to do.

Now it´s time for another nap. We are still coughing away - the poor people on the bus had to listen to both of us hack. I don´t know whether they could hear my wheezing while I was sleeping. That´s a phenomenon I´ve never experienced before - it seems to keep Geordie awake as well as me. He has good hearing. We will start being better with ourselves and drink more water (thanks Kerri), and we are guzzling cough syrup, taking flu medications. We have everything one could need. Even a powder which dissolves in hot water, tastes of lemon and has paracetamol in it - which should help one sleep.

Antigua No. 3

2009-01-25T07:41:00.002-08:00

This is Geordie. Nigel is in bed at 2 pm in Antigua.

Today we had assured tickets on a shuttle (van) from San Pedro la Laguna on Lake Atitlan direct (no boat) to Antigua at 9 am. By 9:10 it was obvious from all the phone calls the guy was making that there was a problem. Problem? We got our money back and walked down the street to the dock. Got a launch direct to Pana (no stops at the villages). We walked up the hill to a tuk-tuk (3 wheeled thing which they call taxis) and drove to a travel office. Arrived at 9:55 and before 10 we were on a shuttle to Antigua. All worked very well. Over the years it has have often been able to jump from one vehicle to another and another and another. The driver took a different way which was very rural, very up and down and very curvy. Nigel who has something (flu)?? was near to sick most of the time. Other than that the drive was beautiful.

We will be here for at least 2 nights until Nigel feels he can make a 4 am shuttle and 6 hour ride to Copan, Honduras.

Off to the square for a visit to the bank and coffee. Guatemalan coffee is sooo good. I won't have my usual protector with me at the bank so must check if anyone is following me after.

La Casa del Mundo and San Pedro de la Laguna

2009-01-23T15:12:00.000-08:00

We had four wonderful days in La Casa del Mundo in Jaibailito, although I apologize for the long delay between our messages. (Note to Kerri, Cathy, Dolores, and Jenny - I´ve included you in this message, and can add you to our list which many of our friends read. Let me know if you would prefer not having these missives. You can decide after reading this one I guess, lol.)

You already know that we arrived in La Casa safely, and that we even met some wonderful people there, but it was more than that. We had a great time, with good people with whom we seemed to share some real camaraderie, and not just folk met on the road. I guess it was cemented on January 20th when I met Kerri and Jenny down at the water for our first 7:30 am swim. It was Kerri´s birthday and it was a promise we´d made and of course must keep. She was in first (not her first time) but Jenny and I took a little longer to commit to the water - that first bracing brisk plunge made us odd converts to the pleasures of the waters of Lago de Atitlán. Kerri says it´s therapeutic - maybe, but it was certainly shockingly cold for the first moments in. Remember that this water is about 600 feet deep just a few meters out from the shore. And a 1000 feet deep further out. Little surprise that the temperature was a little shocking. But in moments that water had become an inviting silky pleasure. I even went back at 11:00 am for another swim. And joined our merry band at 7:30 am for the next two days we were there too, although it wasn´t till after the first I learned that part of the ritual was to stop off at the restaurant for a coffee on the way down. That was just nice. (Jenny christened us the Lago de Atitlán Sociedad Aquatico (LASO), and we will be that forever now.

As well as the wonderful opportunity we had to bond in the lake our meals were as pleasureable. Our second evening we had a great time together along with several others at the resort, helping the continued celebration of Kerri´s birthday. We ate well at all our meals too - they were always four courses, and each night was very different from the one before. Delicious food. We ate Thai one night, Guatemalan another, but since the old memory is going, at the moment, the other two meals are just a blend of good food, good wine, good conversation and sympatico!

Of course we did go off and do things on our own. I casually suggested on our second day that we could walk to Santa Cruz, the next village to the left of our place. Our other intrepid band members had done it the day before and even said the hill was a killer, but I didn´t get the significance of that until we did it ourselves. Yeah, the walk along the hillside, with sometimes a very narrow strip of path to stand on (a foot wide?) was daunting, but hey, it wasn´t that bad. Until we decided we should walk up into the village instead of just hang out at the pier. Oh, my, god! The hilltop villages in Spain and Italy must be jealous of that hill. And as we went up this paved, bare, unshaded slope, we kept being passed by tuk-tuks - (hey you guys back there at La Casa - ya coulda told us, lol.)

But we did it. And were glad we did. There were no child labour events happening the day we walked up, but the church at the top has some fascinating statuary - including a Santiago, to remind us of our camino plans for Spain. Certainly if we stayed here at La Casa for the whole time we are away we would be ready for the hills and the long walks of the Camino. Going up and down the steps four or five times a day, to our room, to the restaurant, to the swimming deck, and our little walks to Jaibalito and Santa Cruz we would be guaranteed to both get ourselves fit and to lose that excess weight we have acquired this past year.

We felt great sadness when we left the Casa to continue on our way. With our departure on the same day as Jenny and Cathy, we left Kerri to fend for herself. But she is such a wonderful person that we know she can make friends in an instant. Hugs Kerri.

We left yesterday for San Pedro de la Laguna. We thought we needed to see more of the lakeside, so we reluctantly headed off. The boat trip over was fun; I had a good conversation with the 15 year old boatboy who was coolness personified, but also smart. I hope he makes his way in the world with great success. We arrived at a sensible hour and found a cheap but comfortable hotel very quickly, then set off to have something to eat for lunch. We walked along the rough path that passes for a road on the little maps we´ve seen - there are real roads here, but these are just dirt tracks, but they did take us along to a really lovely restaurant with a Spanish chef from Barcelona who fed us tortilla de Espaná and Jamon Serrano - now that was a surprise and of course another lovely memory of Spain for us to indulge in.

Following lunch we walked some more, through cornfields with corn actually growing in them (not all the corn fields are in growth) and in a couple of places big swathes of fennel which gave off that wonderful scent of licorice when we brushed them. Mmm. I haven´t seen any sign of fennel on the menus - I wonder what they do with it.

We ate well last night, tuna with a lovely herbed sauce for me, with tiny new potatoes stirfried with mint. Then we went back past the coffeed processing plant which is just across the road from us which at that later hour was in full swing. I have to tell you that whatever is going on, the smell off that plant is not pleasant. I can´t figure out if the smell is from the coffee skins which are being husked off, or whether they are using some chemical to process it. But it´s not pleasant. At least in our room the wind seems to be going the right way.

Today wasn´t my best day though. I woke up this morning, after feeling under the weather last night and knew I had some bug or other. My throat and my chest both hurt when I cough and I had a really bad headache. We are hoping this doesn´t interfere with our plans. I took aspirins twice today but they never touched my headache, so at four o´clock I broke down and took some of my emergency supply of tylenol3, which seems to have helped a lot. I don´t feel quite as feverish, although maybe staying in bed from 11:00 am till 4:00 pm helped that too.

We have booked tickets on a shuttle tomorrow morning that leaves at 9 am for Antigua. We have decided to skip going to Pana - because when we drove through it on our way to the lake we were not at all impressed at how much it had grown and over gringoed - and it was bad enough the last time I was here 18 years ago. We have booked the same hotel for tomorrow night in Antigua that we have already enjoyed twice and it´s likely that I´ll vote for another day to see if this flu-ey feeling goes away. I don´t relish the thought of going to Antigua tomorrow and then leaving the next morning at 4 am for the shuttle to Copan in Honduras which is really our next planned stop. We will be finished with Guatemala then and be planning our trip though El Salvador to Nicaragua for the next six weeks or so.

Guatemalan food so far!

2009-01-19T14:51:00.001-08:00

Well, I guess I can talk about food now. We have had several requests for it, so we thought it would be a good idea to share. We have a confession first. We really haven't gone out of our way to find Guatemalan food. We have seen some evidence of it on menus, but I have resisted since I'm not much of a fan of corn tortillas which are certainly ubuquitous here. Geordie likes them and has had them with his breakfast but not much else.

We have mentioned our discovery of Hector's No name restaurant in Antigua. It has very European food - and great french fries, although we only had those once. The menu is very small and the first night one of us should have ordered the special because it was chicken stuffed with leeks and he hasn't had a special on any other of the nights we ate there. The duck breast with a pave of potatoes and carrots and a lovely surprising creme fraiche topping was wonderful. Geordie had the boeuf bourgignon twice, the first more successful than the second (which was a little chewey).

In Montericco we stuck to fish, fried and for me a pasta or two. The pasta's were nice - I'm really into comfort food like that. But we really did need to go out and search for more authentic food, so when we were back in Antigua we made the effort. The first place we tried was good. It is mentioned in the guidebooks and truly does have all the food sitting on a stove that's at the entrance. All are in red sauces, and one of them was described as picante, but the others were not. There was pork, lamb, pork feet, beef, cow stomach, etc. We got to choose a meat and then two sides. I chose lamb ribs while Geordie chose the shredded beef. The lamb was tasty, and I had it with tiny potatoes and black beans. Geordie's beef had potatoes and carrots in it so he chose rice and potato salad. He enjoyed them both, but they weren't spectacular.

At another place Geordie ordered a turkey soup which I watched being dished up from a big pot. He was served it in a huge bowl, wonderful tasty broth, that one knew had to have been flavoured with some intriguing spices, and alongside it he was given three little bowls, containing onions and cilantro in one, a herb like sage or savory in another, a red powder, which was not chili in the last. He kept adding more and more of that, which changed the flavor but didn't make it hot. It was good. I had a simple roast chicken there whose skin was redolent of garlic. Yum.

At the next meal, I ordered something different - Pupusas with Pepian. These were two thin corn tortillas which were stuffed with chees and chicken, and fried. It was simple and very delicious. Even with corn tortillas I'll order that again. The pepian was a sauce made from pumpkin seeds, tomatoes, cinnamon and other flavours but it didn't tast at all strong. It was lovely. The garnish was a cabbage salad which I also enjoyed.

Geordie's meal that time was a dish like a Mexican tostado, a crisp tortilla layered with guacamole, spicy chicken, cabbage relilsh and lettuce. It was great although he enjoyed the fact that I got rice with my dish, so he could expand his meal - because it was dinner, while the food was really more snacklike. It would have been perfect for a small lunch.

Last night at dinner here in La Casa del Mundo we had a chicken and vegetable kebob affair, which was delicious. I can't tell you the other flavours but it was so well cooked, moist and tender with that smoky flavour from the grill. It was served with potato puree, a tomato and avocado salad, and we had a delicious corn soup to begin - again with the corn I don't like. Hmmm. Dessert was a sort of strawberry shortcake which was lovely and we ate the whole thing with a bottle of Cab Sauvignon from Chile - cheaper than other bottles we've had in Antigua.

There are lots of more food adventures to be had. I'll get to another report some day. Until then, buen provecho..

La Casa del Mundo

2009-01-19T14:25:00.000-08:00

"I'm writing this quickly because I know you all read fast!" (Adapted from Ethel Pottle, my mother).

Really, this place has expensive email so I have to get as much in as possible not to waste money. We arrived at La Casa yesterday (yes, Joanna, it's the same place) but I haven't yet gone swimming in the lake. I did manage to delete everyone of the pictures on my camera about 15 minutes ago - do read the messages on your cam screen carefully, and don't just blithely presss ok!) No matter, it just reminds me of our trip to Africa where my camera died very early in the trip - I got to use all my senses after that to enjoy the trip way more than I might have through a lens.) But we still have six weeks to go, so I'll still take pictures and will do my best not to delete the rest. There will be no pictures of Monterrico and bird life though.

We arrived here to a piece of heaven I think. Well, if heaven means climbing up to the sky on stone steps for about 185 steps to our room from the wharf. The restaurant is located half way between them so no matter where we go we will walk up and down ths stone steps. The info explains that the people bought this land to build their home and a lovely hotel. I just question what they mean by land - this place is vertical. However, that means that everywhere you go there are views of the incredible Lago de Atitlan, Lake Atitlan. Directly across from us are two amazing volcanoes, one behind the other, while to the right is another volcano - both come directly down to the shore, and in several places villages cling to the sides, which at night are lit so that there is a string of diamonds strung along the lake.

Evening meals here are communal - and incredibly tasty last night. We had a great time talking to the people at our end last night. It's amazing how many travel stories there are and how much fun it is to share them. One of the people from last night will be celebrating her 50 th birthday tomorrow, and she's invited us to help her celebrate.

This morning after a wonderful leisurely breakfast we did a walk to the little village nearby - about 10 minutes walk up and then downhill on a very steep and very narrow path. Geordie warned me to be careful lest I slip off like I did once on a little jaunt above Puerto Vallarta. I stepped with great care.

In the village we were shocked to see a very blatant example of child labour in action. It's Monday, and as far as we are concerned the kids should be in school. Not here. There were a group of children ranging in ages from 8 to 12 working their hearts out. The youngest were given a cement block each held by a rope and a tump line around their foreheads, up the path that we knew we would labour up ourselves in a few minutes. The oldest boy set a 20 kg (44 lb) sack of cement in his own forehead tumpline and then another boy laded a second one on his back above it and he set off with his 88 pounds. That other child arranged 4 cement blocks for his load and a woman who may have been his mother loaded herself up with six of them. We only hope that the people for whom they are hauling these loads are not gringos who should know better. Mind you, one of the other guests pointed out that if they didn't work, these children could well go hungry. It's a vicious circle if you ask me.

I was going to tell you all about some of the interesting meals we had in Antigua two nights ago, but after the last paragraph I feel that it would be wrong to talk of such frivolous things. There's a quandary. I'll save it for another day when I'm not quite so wracked with guilt. This is the first time we've seen the real privation that exists in this country after 10 years of peace. School may be free for these children but their parents still can't afford to clothe them, feed them and keep them without some work. So they miss school we guess. It's sad because as Elizabeth Bell mentioned during our tour in Antigua, anyone here who finished school is almost guaranteed a good life. It ain't going to happen for many of these children.

No Se Permite!

2009-01-17T08:26:00.001-08:00

We made it back from Monterrico to Antigua last evening, after a hair-raising drive. I thought we should give the poor man enough money for a haircut at least because he spent so much time adjusting his longish hair - with both hands, as he drove hell-bent for leather on the highway. Geordie says he was also falling asleep, and kept himself awake by leaning on the steering wheel while he drove with his elbows. He drifted over the yellow line quite often and his gear shifting skills were the worst. I fear for the engine and the drive shaft and the poor vehicle may be in trouble soon because the oil light was on the whole time we drove - for two hours plus.

But we are here. And we have made arrangements to travel on. When we arrived last night we drove past the travel agency where we had arranged our ticket to Guatemala for today. But we had decided to cancel that trip, so after we got back to our hotel (15 minutes later because our driver stopped one block from our hotel and did some business first) we walked over to cancel our trip. And now it was closed!

We went off to our favorite restaurant instead and sat there, then decided that we should call to cancel since there was a 24 hours number. We used the restaurant phone, but I got a recorded message which I could not understand a word of, so I hung up. Five minutes later the phone rang and it was for me - or at least that guy who had called and hung up - guess they have call display. I still couldn´t make myself understood, so I got the waitress to do my cancelling for me, except that I said I was cancelling our trip to Rio Dulce instead of the one to Guatemala City.

We then relaxed and enjoyed our steak meals with a lovely bottle of Tempranillo. Then Hector the owner arrived and was glad-handing everyone, and then decided to open a bottle of the local wine made in a vineyard nearby. It was a Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot and quite dry and tasty so we celebrated that too.

When we got back to our hotel we decided we should attempt cancelling again, correctly this time, so we had the desk clerk call for us and do all the talking. No one came by this morning at 7 30 am to tell us our shuttle was outside so it seems to have worked. After breakfast this morning we went back to our travel agent, told him our story, booked a trip to Panajachel for tomorrow morning at 7 am and only had to pay the difference of four dollars. Success.

Now the explanation of the No Se Permite. It´s a sign at the Palapa restaurant in our hotel at Monterrico. It reads: "Por Favor. No Se Permite Emborracharse!" Or as it might read in English - "Please. It is forbidden to endrunken yourself." We did our best to follow the rule.

The other thing we noticed in Monterrico, which is true all over the country I´m sure, is that the delivery trucks, those guys who deliver the frozen chickens and the sliced meats (we saw both) have a guy riding shotgun. Literally. When the truck stops the guy with the shotgun gets out first, and then the driver, and then both go to the shop where they are delivering - the shot gun at the ready. Makes us feel so confident. Of course all the banks have armed guards and the jade shops, but then so does our favorite breakfast place where a uniformed guard with a revolver on his hip stands sentinel at the door. Bacon and eggs never felt so safe.

We are off to see a museum or two now. There is a Printing press museum really close, and we visited it last time. We are going to see if they´ve added anything.

Como un pescado

2009-01-16T10:13:00.004-08:00

The sea is like a sheet of mirrored glass which was shaken as it cooled so that the liquid glass set and hardened - the ripples, waves and seacrests all frozen above the silvered surface. The sun blinds you as it shines relentlessly on the splendor.

The palms stand sentinel. The breeze just brushes the fronds with nary a backward glance. Just a breath and gone, but another breath follows and another, so that the palm moves, always in motion as it stands still.

The streets are hot and dusty here in Monterrico. A step along the back street raises a little puff of dark volcanic sand, and a dog fight which has dogged our steps the length of the street causes a dust cloud to engulf the snarling, snapping animals which bare their teeth, bark at each other defiantly, then pull away back to their indolent life in the dirt, stretched out, barely alive in the enervating heat.

In the tienda up by the mangrove lagoon we stop for a cold drink and ask the tiny old woman "¿Como estas?" "How are you doing?" "Como un pescado, como un pescado", she replies. "Like a fish" as she waves her hand in and out as if she was swimming through a stand of reeds. "Como un pescado!" - A fish alive and leaping in the humid air of Monterrico. She is grey-haired, tiny and wrinkled - her thin arms reaching for the cool bottle of Coke in the non-freezing freezer.

I see her skipping effortlessly through the limpid waters through the mangrove roots, two eyes looking down to watch the bottom, two looking up for hungry birds. So a fish she dreams as she sits in the heat and humidity of another day while the palms stand sentinel and the mirrored sea gleams in an impossible light.

Monterrico Lifestyle

2009-01-15T10:31:00.001-08:00

I think we are growing used to the life in Monterrico. For the first day or two, this was just a dusty little place, with nothing happening, and no life. Now though the people are appearing - it´s as if we´ve just begun to notice them. Of course it´s because we have wandered off the beaten path and are exploring the side streets where the people actually live as opposed to seeing the area where the tourists like us hang out.

Yesterday we went on our lagoon tour through the mangroves - but we cheated. We took a sunset cruise instead of a sunrise cruise. There were still lots of birds and it was so very tranquil hanging out on a boat on our little plastic chairs while we were poled along the edges of the red mangroves. The young man with whom we had booked our tour passed us over to Rubén who was quite taciturn, but gently talked while he poled us around about the life of the mangroves. His Spanish was a little beyond me sometimes, so I just nodded, but often he was able to explain the wildlife we saw.

There were lots of tall white cranes (garzas blancas) treading carefully in the water, eyeing the area for fish to swallow. We even caught one catching a fish - an exciting moment. There were gray cranes too, and some small dark herons which sit hunched in the trees with their eyes on the water too. And there were some funny little birds, all dark, black and rufous coloured feathers who surprised as they flew with their bright yellow underwings which flashed like the wings of a grasshopper as they skipped from lily pad to grass at the edges of the mangroves. Overhead were kingfishers on the electrical wires, which made me ask myself how you put up electrical poles in amongst mangroves, which are in fact floating islands of trees which make their own land by dropping their leaves amongst their trailing roots. Not too secure for walking on, that´s for sure.

We also wandered out into a wider expanse of water, lake like in its tranquility, where we had a fine view of the two volcanoes, Agua and Pacaya. Pacaya wasn´t smoking at this time, but it´s a common occurence because it´s a very active volcano along with Fuego. Both erupt all the time, with Pacaya the one where one can climb to see the lava flow by at your feet as our Australian friends did. We know we are not in shape to climb up a lava slope with the shifting sands beneath our feet.

This morning we went out to Johnny´s Place for breakfast and had huevos rancheros - the Guatemalan version of a Mexican favorite. The difference is that the Guatemalan one is not one bit spicy. After breakfast we wandered over to their hammocks to lie in the shade under the palapas. Because of the gentle slope upwards of the beach, we could see only a long wide strip of dark sand (black sand is really dark grey) a thin strip of brilliant blue where the water stretches across the horizon and then the pale blue sky sweeping up and over us like a canopy of watered silk. Peaceful and exactly what we wanted to do right then.

As we were readying ourselves to leave three young women introduced themselves, by asking where we were from. They turned out to be from Victoria. As an aside, it´s amazing how many people think that Victoria is on Victoria Island, instead of Vancouver Island. I guess we need to do a little more tourist promotion as we go. I met a man yesterday as I was lying in the hammock at our place who told me he had been to Victoria Island and it happened just two days ago too. The man I met yesterday was Japanese, and was spending two months in Guatemala. He had already spent a month studying Spanish and insisted on speaking to me in that language, which was very good for both of us becuase we seemed to be in sync with our level of language. He was doing well, although I don´t think he once used the past tense - that´s the tense I think Spanish teachers should start with - really, we talk about what we did far more than what we are doing.

After our sojourn under the shade we went off to check out the turtle, caiman, iguana sanctuary. It´s a little ramshackle but they are doing their bit to protect the sea turtles, by digging up their eggs as soon as they are laid and taking them back to be buried in a safer spot. We are not sure how things are going though because as we looked at the pool where some of the hatched turtles are living it was obvious that some of the tiny creatures were quite dead and others were struggling. But last night apparently we missed an event because people who ate at Johnny´s Beach side restaurant saw a turtle come in to lay its eggs. Two groups told us about this - perhaps tonight we should go over there for a beer on the off chance.

Further back in the sanctuary we wandered through concrete enclosures with some very languid and indolent looking caimans slumbered in the heat. They are suck prehistoric looking animals, these alligators. Thy are not huge, maybe only 5 or 6 feet long, but they look like they would love to take bite out of a leg or two. In another enclosure were some big iguanas, also basking in the heat, while a third enclosure held a whole crew of green lizards, all one atop another in a great pile of green.

Last night we had dinner at a really good restaurant, where the food was not only tasty but also quite well priced. We ate with our friends from Mendocino county and enjoyed good story telling. They have recommended a place on Lake Atitlan where we are going to reserve a place. It sound quite idyllic, as it climbs the cliff above the lake with gorgeous views and even an opportunity to swim in the lake which is 1000 feet deep (yes, there are three zeroes in that number).

Tonight we will probably ate at the same place we ate last night but will go over for that goodnight drink at Johnny´s and hope for turtles. And if not we can still have a nice Cuba Libre (rum and coke) or a shot of ílegal mescal, three varieties available at higher and higher prices.

We are off tomorrow back to Antigua and another night at our lovely hotel there and then we will make our way to Lago de Atitlan. We have to figure out if we can get our ticket changed to the lake from Guatemala City which we had booked already. If not, I guess we suck that up too. We will take the opportunity to get more money, although I think we can use our bank card in Panajachel, the gringo town from which everything on the lake is accessible.

Monterrico

2009-01-13T09:03:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we made our journey to Monterrico on our shuttle bus. It was quite new, and roomy with only six of us in all on the bus. The driver did chat a little as he drove at 100 km an hour down the highway. I remarked to Geordie that 100 km an hour here is similar to 30 km an hour on a highway in India. Not quite as scary, come to think of it.

And yes, Monterrico is hot! The thermometer on our clock only shows 30 celcius, so it´s not as bad as I thought it might be, but it´s plenty hot enough. The people here wear shorts and tshirts - they are not formal as they appear to be in Antigua - where only the tourists wear shorts. The town has one long paved street which runs from the Pacific Ocean to the lagoon on the other side of the peninsula. At that side there are barges lined up waiting for vehicles to get over to the highway on the other side. While we were there, a truck pulled up, pulled onto the barge and then sailed majestically up the lagoon, with a little outboard motor providing the power.

When we arrived at our hotel, we were greeted by a guy who wanted to offer us a morning tour of the lagoon - which would start at 5:30 am. Hmmm! It would last about two hours and the guide would be poling the boat so as not to disturb the wild life, which includes plenty of birds and even a four-eyed fish. We have not yet decided whether we want to be knocked up at that early hour - this morning I hauled myself out of bed at 9:00 am - which felt a little early.

Our hotel is similar to a motel, with little buildings parallel, facing eachother across a pool. To get our view we have to head up to the restaurant where there is a palapa roof, some nice breeze, a row of hammocks on either side of the table area, and of course some ranchero music playing constantly. The room is very basic, as you might imagine, with two beds, four walls, a thin plywood ceiling with a palapa roof above it, and a fan which creates a major strobe effect with the light which has been installed above it. It was impossible to read with that strobing so Geordie sent me out to ask for a stand up fan which I got. English is not well spoken in this area, so we are lucky that we know enough Spanish to get around.

We met a couple from Mendocino County in the USA on the bus and had dinner with them last night. They had planned to study Spanish for a week here in Monterrico, but when they went to the school, it had no record of them and no teacher available. So scratch the idea of taking a week of classes impromptu, which had been one of our options.

We also did a wander of the beachside restaurants yesterday. The sand is black here and thick so it´s not easy to walk on in the heat. We stumbled down the beach until we couldn´t take it anymore, then went inland to the sandy road, which is almost, but not quite, as hard to walk on.

We are staying here four nights in all - I imagine it will be all about where we will eat, how much time we will stay in the pool, how much we will read, and how much we will sleep. Pretty basic stuff. We have discovered that noone around here takes Mastercard or Amex, only Visa - the card we left at home. And there is no bank machine either, so we will have to ration our money. We were able to use MC last night at the Swiss-Guatemalan restaurant after about 10 minutes of them on the phone to get the right confirmations. But it worked so we may eat there again soon.

We are now considering our next move. Originally our plan was to go back to Antigua, take a shuttle to Guatemala City then a bus to Rio Dulce. But after tallking to Joanna and her husband, and considering the heat here, we are thinking maybe we don´t want to spend more time in the heat and humidity filled lowlands, so we just might to to Lake Atitlan, which is higher so will be cooler at night even though it is still quite warm during the day. There are many villages around the lake where one can visit and stay, so we are weighing our options right now. We´ll see.

One thing I must say about Guatemala. The people are really so very charming. In the restaurants you are welcomed the moment you enter and the service is always with a great smile. And the phrase "at your service" sounds so very genuine. On the streets people greet one with a smile, a buenas dias, or buenas noches, and everone seems genuinely pleased to meet you. We love that part of Guatemala, and the incredible scenery makes it that much more desirable to travel in.

Antigua still

2009-01-11T14:37:00.000-08:00

We have been exploring Antigua for four days now, and are ready to leave, since today we saw all the rest of the monuments we missed in the days before. We´ve explored so much that I´m not even sure where I should start. We arrived late at night so we went right to bed in our cool room, with the twin beds. The man checking us in had asked if we wanted one bed, I asked if it was a queen, and he said yes, but when we went upstairs there were two beds, one facing each way against either wall. Oh, well. so much for my communication. I figured he though I meant a ¨tween¨. The next day we went out to explore and to check out some of the tour options. (When we got back, we had acquired a huge king sized bed - by pushing out two beds together, it seems.~

Antigua is surrounded by volcanoes, three of them - including Agua (water) and Fuego (Fire) which you may have guessed is active. We weren´t aware of that so much, since for a lot of the day clouds sit about halfway up the volcanoes. but these are usually not there in the morning or the late evening. Agua is a very beautiful shape and sits at the end of our street (I suppose it´s at the end of all the streets). The climate is probably perfect - with temperate days and nights, although at this time of year, the evening temperatures drop a lot and a few warm blankets are certainly useful. During the day, especially if the sun is out, it´s overwarm, so we start out with a shirt and end up carrying it not too long after.

On our first day we didn´t do much touring. We did go to a travel group which offers highly recommended tours and booked two -one of the nearby villages and one of the city centre. The second is offered by Elizabeth Bell who has lived in Guatemala for 40 years, since she was 14 and her parents moved there. After booking the tickets with her charming son Julio, we headed off to find the church of San Jeronimo which like almost all the churches around here is in ruins. Most of the buildings were destroyed in the 1773 earthquake after which the government decided to move to it´s present capital in Guatemala City. It wasn´t the end of Antigua but certainly all the churches were forced to move so they took all the decorations with them, leaving the empty churches we see now.

We also visited another church which holds the tomb of Saint Hermano Pedro who was canonized by the Pope in 2002 -not too long ago. His tomb is very popular with people looking for miracle cures and there are little wax candles representing parts of the body, hanging in the area behind his tomb.

On our second day we did the village tour which took us out to several villages in the surrounding area. We had a guide and driver and too other tourists, self-described as New York Jews. They have both lived in New York all their lives, they both work in the same university and have known each other for over 40 years I think, but have been together officially for only the last 8 years.

The tour generally consisted of us arriving at the main square outside the church, looking at the church facade, talking a little about the village then hoping into our tour bus to continue to the next town, to do it again. At one town though there was a huge outdoor laundry facility where the women were out in full force doing their clothes in the basins surrounding the huge water facility.

The next day was the busy one. We started out with our city tour offered by Elizabeth. She is an amazing fount of knowledge and knows so much about the city and it´s history. It is her assertion that the town was never abandoned and even though the capital was moved, many of the people stayed and continued living there. She took us to the main church, the Santiago church (echoes of Spain there) where there was a first communion taking place. It was obviously an important person whose children were being communed because they had their very own solist who sang Ave Maria - with great histrionics but also with a beautiful voice.

We also saw a local house which, although converted to a hotel, we did get a sense of how the monied people lived, in these huge compounds with several interior courtyards. Our second last stop was at a jade factory, which was a little out of character for the rest of the tour we thought, but it also included the restroom and coffee stop. so we didn´t complain. Our last stop was a very new hotel which has taken over what seems like acres of land and turned it into not only a hotel, but also three museums, a church for very exclusive weddings and the usual other accourtrements of a fine hotel. The museums were closed, but Elizabeth used her pull and had them open the museum with the precolumbian collection which has been intermingled with a collection of contempory glass from all over the world including one excellent piece from Canada.

That afternoon we went back to our place where we had the great pleasure of meeting up with Joanna - one of the Australians we toured with in India, and her husband, who were now on tour in Central America. We spent a great time with them at lunch reminiscing with Joanna and talking about her travels here. We met again for dinner at a great little place we had found the night before which has only about 8 items on the menu. The place has no name, but produced some amazing food from a tiny open kitchen. The first night I had duck breast on a bed of gratineed potato and carrot, and graced with a dollop of creme fraiche. Geordie had a huge bowl of Boeuf Bourginon with large slabs of roasted potatoes. For dessert we shared a lemon tart on a chocolate base. MMMM.

This morning we decided to see all those churches which we had been saving until after Elizabeth´s tour. We went off at 9ish, and had breakfast at a great little place that was hopping today, and then took off for the far corners of the town. All the churches are ruined, having fallen in to ruin after the huge earthquake of 1773. The pillars of the first church almost filled the centre of the nave and we had to climb up and clamber over the stones to see it. The pillars fill the space to about 12 feet deep. Amazing. All around, as with all the churches there are large gardens which are planted very nicely with great flowers and lots of grass where we found many young Antiguans who had hoped to find privacy for their wooing. They were in all the little side rooms too. Disconcerting to come upon them smooching in the dark nooks and crannies.

Each church had it´s major feature - the last one had two, the biggest fountain in Central America and a round collection of cells where the nuns lived. In two of the places we were able to climb up and see the views too, although today the clouds were very low. (I forgot to mention that while we were with Elizabeth yesterday we saw a huge plume of smoke rising up from behind the clouds surrounding Fuego´s summit. Very exciting.

Tomorrow we are off to warmer climes. We will be taking a shuttle which will take us to Monterrico on the Pacific Coast. Julio promised us temperatures of 85 to 90. Maybe we´ll want to come back to the cool evenings of Antigua, but we´ve booked four nights and our return shuttle bus, so I guess we had better suck it up.

Antigua

2009-01-08T09:55:00.001-08:00

This morning we stepped out of our ancient house/posada and at the end of the street there was a very tall volcano. I guess we're not in Kansas (Vancouver) any more. All our flights were on time and arrived early. Our private driver appeared with his wife outside the Guatemala City airport and we were off through the night. Thirty minutes later we arrived at our posada in the ancient town of Antigua. To bed and slept for 9 hours. Sitting on planes and 5 hours in Houston was tiring. Had a great breakfast at Dona Luisa's - juice, coffee and eggs with black beans and little home made buns. So good. Next is more coffee and sitting in the main square to watch the world go by. I love it down here.

More to come once we have done something.

Candolim, Goa

2008-02-27T20:37:00.003-08:00

We are on the second last leg of our trip through India, and like the last couple of months we have been lazing around on beaches. We have discovered that Goa's beaches cannot match Kerala's since for some reason, most of the "beach" resorts" are not on beaches, but away from them some distance. For example the last two places we have stayed, in Anjuna Beach and here in Candolim the "resorts" are 250 meters from the beach and a bit of a slog down.

Here in Candolim the beach is dominated by a huge sea going freighter that ran aground here eight years ago and has been left to moulder on the beach blighting the view. Apparently the cost of moving it is more than it's worth so no one wants to spend the money. Apparently the money the tourists generate here is not enough to pay for the removal either, although that's a facetious statement on my part really.

I have discovered that in Anjuna I took only two pictures and they are not good quality pictures of a bird on a wire. Here in Candolim I have not had the camera out at all, so there are no pictures here either. I think I'm not terribly inspired. The beach in Anjuna took some getting to, since it was not really nearby. The beach we were near was just a rocky one, while the active beach was reached through a maze of people selling the usual schlocky junk which we have seen all over India. It's amazing that there are some many carved elephants available for sale here. There is definitely one for every tourist in the country, but of course not everyone is buying so there's a lot left to show off to the next tourist coming along.

We did go to a Saturday night market in Anjuna which was a huge affair, but selling exactly the same things available all over the streets in every town we have been in. The better part was the food fair, which had from Israeli to Turkish to of course Indian.

We did meet a group of charming people at the place we discovered was the best for sunset viewing in Anjuna. Two were Canadian, both from Ontario, although not together. Denny has been living here for seven years but is leaving to find another place in the world to enjoy - Goa has finally disappointed here. Another friend of hers, Isabel, from Portugal has been there for more than 12 years and she too is finally leaving. The other Canadian we met was Richard, who is studying Watsu here, which is Water Shiatsu. We loved the place we met them because it had great Hummus with Pita which we would enjoy each evening as the sun set into the mists out over the ocean.

We have only one more night here and then we fly off to Mumbai. We have booked a tour there of the slums, which comes highly recommended. No photos though, cameras are not allowed, so I won't be able to share the sights with you.

I am going to leave you with two views of the lovely cottages we stayed in on Patnem Beach what feels weeks ago now. We have been in three different places since then, so it is a little behind the times. It's a nicer image than I can share with you of the places we have been since we left Panjim, so a little more positive.

Panjim and St. Evex!

2008-02-20T00:20:00.003-08:00

It's been awhile again. We have moved twice since the last message and have not had much luck with internet. This area is subject to power outages - this morning when I was about to log on to start this blog the whole place shut down because the electrical company was out in the street doing something with wires and cut the power. On my way up the street to go back to our hotel one of the wires hit me on the head! Luckily it didn't appear to have any power in it either.(I would also have put in some pictures here but the USB port is not working.)

We spent a quiet four nights in Patnem, the small beach next to where we first stayed in Palolem. Our place was a little doll house, along with a double row of other doll houses in bright pastel colours (I don't think that's a contradiction.) Ours was at the front so we had a nice sit out where we could read in the shade and listen to the sound of the waves. I do find the waves are great to sleep to as well, so things were just lovely. There was even a place next door that made caffe latte so we had a coffee or two.

From Patnem we took off for one night in Colva which we didnt' really enjoy - too far from the beach and too far from any decent restaurants so we only lasted a day. The birthday party that went on until 12:30 am which was held directly below our room didn't help much either.

So we packed up and got ourselves a car to Panjim (or Panaji) which is the State capital of Goa. It's quite nice, with a real Portuguese influence in the houses, the food and even the people. Here one is more likely to see a woman in a dress than a sari. The houses are often made with plastered laterite stone and only one or two stories. The two story ones usually have a nice veranda on the front, and the roofs of the houses are all tiled - the tiles look really old and worn.

We did a walkabout a couple of days ago and went up past a Hindu temple and then through a quite smart part of town where a couple of the buildings were obviously nice renovations. I imagine they are lovely and cool on the inside - unlike the outside which is very very warm. We also made it to one of the huge Christian churches here in Goa - this one the Church of the Immaculate Conception which was open for viewing. Our hotel is on St. Sebastian Street and that church is just a few doors down, but it has not been open since we arrived.

Our first night here we decided to be tourists again and took an evening cruise on the river Mandovi - which leads to the sea nearby. We almost changed our minds when we saw the huge speakers being unwrapped in readiness, and there was indeed very loud music as we waited for the gate to open to let us on. The music continued while we waited to leave and during the fifteen minutes or so it took to disconnect us from another boat which had been tied to ours. The only way our boat could get out into the river was to set sail with the other boat in tandem with ours, so out in the channel there was lots of shouting and waving of arms and worried looks as our siamese twin was disengaged and left tied up to a buoy in the middle of the river.

From that point the entertainment started - which consisted of a couple of dancing girls and then an MC began to exhort the crowds to dance - there were competitions - couples, women only, men only, everyone, best girl dancer (who got the only prize I could see which was a tee shirt from the Sikkim tourism board who were on board too). The evening air was nice and we did have the opportunity to see the cityscape from the water. At the end there was even a Portuguese dance by two girls in long skirts and head scarfs and two boys in black pants white shirts and black hats. The tour lasted an hour and went out to the mouth of the river and back. Luckily we didn't have to go out and reengage our twin in the middle of the river.

We ate at a hotel restaurant that was recommended in the Lonely Planet where it was described as eating inside a Wedgewood box and it was an amazingly accurate description - pale blue walls and ceiling decorated with swirls and whoops of white plaster with a few dark blue accents, the ceiling hung with huge crystal chandeliers. The food did not stand up to the ambiance although it was ok - nothing to write home about - at least we felt cool inside the blueness.

We found another hotel restaurant (The Hotel Venite)which has been much better for food although not gourmet; it doesn't rent out rooms either we discovered when we met a woman from Portugal looking for a place to stay. Let's be honest, it's because they have some lovely refreshing Vinho Verde, the fresh young, pale yellow, slightly sparkly wine of Portugal which we had with lunch. We have been back twice now since there really aren't many more food options - and it has a better breakfast than the Panjim Inn which is a hoity toity place which overcharges for all its food. We did make it to another local and recommended place where we had Goan food - beans and pork with sausage (nothing like canned beans, honest) and a Creme caramel which was really delicious.

Yesterday we finally got out to Old Goa, which was the original site of Goa's capital when it was first occupied by the Portuguese. (By the way, the Portuguese did not leave Goa until the mid-1950's with the encouragement of an armed force of the Indian Army which invaded one day. The Portuguese just packed up and went home without a fight - obviously they could take a hint.)

The main reason to go to Old Goa these days is to see the several churches left behind by the Portuguese - churches build in the late 1500's, early 1600's. The church one must see is the Bom Jesus (Good Jesus) which contains the earthly remains of St. Francis Xavier who came to Goa as a missionary from the Jesuits back in the day. His body is still on display in a very large three tiered case but he's up pretty high so you really don't get much of a look. The church has made things a little easier by putting a set of lit pictures on the wall where one can see the desiccated face and hand of the saint. Apparently the other arm and a shoulder blade were removed and sent as relics to other churches. (Of course to any Canadian, Saint Evex is the name of a very well known University in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, so it felt quite appropriate to visit his tomb).

The other church across the road is the Se which was built by the Franciscans - St. Francis of Assisi this time. No doubt rival St. Francises made things interesting here.There was another lovely small stone chapel dedicated to St. Catherine behind the Se, which was under renovation. Geordie imagined it as a nice little cottage and began placing furniture and planning where the dining room should be, but have no worry, I'm sure the church will not be offering it for sale and nor will we be living in India.

We have only a week left in Goa and tomorrow we are off to another beach called Anjuna. We have booked ourselves the Villa Anjuna which is a hotel, not an apartment, but it has a pool, so I'm looking forward to using it to cool off. No doubt I'll find Internet there somewhere. After Anjuna we have three more days to plan for, so may move to another beach for those days, or stay where we are if things are comfortable. It might be hard to give up a pool. Yes, I know the ocean comes right up to the beach, but it is so hot that the sand burns one's feet getting to it and back, so hanging around a pool can be very pleasurable. We can go out and enjoy the beach when the sun goes down; we might even watch the sunset first.

After Goa we are flying to Mumbai for three more days and then it's home on March 4. So soon, now - I imagine that when we are on the plane we might be thinking our usual, I can't believe it's over. It's been long, mind you, and very hot the last two months so for awhile we will be enjoying the cool and maybe even the rain of Vancouver. But the feet will be itching soon enough we know too. No doubt Geordie will be checking out guide books for somewhere else come summer or fall.

Goan Idyll

2008-02-11T20:32:00.000-08:00

Arriving here was a misadventure. We left Kochi at 2:15 in the afternoon, only 10 minutes late for our expected 14 hour journey to Goa. We were arriving in Goa at the Cancona station, only 4 km from our real destination, Palolem Beach, at an expected time of 5:00 am - which is terribly early in the morning. Geordie's clock had started acting up and the alarm function was not functioning, so I even bought us a cheap clock to make sure we would wake up at 4:30 am to get ready for our arrival.

Everything went as planned; we even had a nice meal provided on the train - Tandoori Chicken and fried rice, which was actually edible. Then we went to bed at 9:00 pm since we were tired and we did have to get up awfully early. And the alarm worked so we struggled out of bed (I was on the top of a three tier bunk while Geordie was in the middle with some stranger on the bottom who arrived at midnight to bunk in. (I slept through the whole thing although Geordie says the family who arrived were very noisy and disturbed him greatly.

So there we were, 4:30 am, no place to be but in the area near the toilet, with the train attendant trying to sleep. We disturbed him which may have explained what happened. We did figure out that we were about an hour and a half late, because a family wanted to get off at a station before ours and told us what time they were supposed to arrive. This seemed good news since it meant that we would be arriving a little later and would not have to hang around a station to get a tuk-tuk for the beach. No point in arriving at 5:30 am when everyone is asleep.

But we failed to reckon with the fact that our attendant spoke no English. As the time went on, we stopped a few times and each time asked the guy if it was Cancona and each time he seemed to suggest it wasn't. The sun started to rise, putting a beautiful pearlescent glow in the sky to the east, and the time kept going on. It seemed we were further away from our stop than we thought since it was another hour before we finally arrived - at the station 35 kilometers beyond our stop! eordie gave the attendant a real tongue lashing which no doubt was wasted since the guy had no idea what he was saying. In any case there we were, well beyond our destination, faced with having to book a taxi back to the beach which cost us over 600 rupees extra. No, we were not pleased. The good news is that this was our last train journey in India. From Goa we will be flying to Mumbai and then after three days there we will fly home!

But this was our destination! Palolem is really quite beautiful with its curve of bay and it's backdrop of coconut palms and edge to edge huts available for rent on the beach.

Of course the quality of the huts leaves a little to be desired. For the money these are probably the least high-end of any of our accomodation. The bed is comfortable though and the site is lovely, but the hut is very makeshift. We have a sit out with a hand made bed to lie on and just inside a porch with one nail to hang anything. Then there is a big canvas tent, framed and covered with a roof to keep off the sun, and then at the back six rickety steps to get down to a concrete floored bathroom, a cold water shower and a sink and toilet. And oh yes, a rat! Well, Geordie says the lovely little furry creature he saw two nights ago as he was going to use the facilities was a rat, but I didn't see it, so I have to take his word for it. Here's a view of the hut, with me sitting in what appears to be a meditative pose but is in fact me reading a book!

We have spent four nights in this palatial tent, with our mosquito net, and our creaky wooden floor which moves at every step. You can imagine how much I hate going to the bathroom in the middle of the night. But we've enjoyed the food in our restaurant, and last night had a pizza to rival anything coming out of Naples, complete with real Prosciutto Crudo! The chef is Italian and it shows. But we are moving today to another smaller and quieter beach which we walked to a couple of days ago. We saw the huts on the beach and decided we had to stay in them - they are so much nicer looking than what we have, and next door is a small restaurant which does real Italian coffee. Must say that coffee and food are some of the best exports that Italy has provided the rest of the world.

We have a special group of neighbours at our present hut though. Next to us is a large tree with a large hole at its base and inside there have been a lovely family of puppies with their mother. I'm sure there were two fathers involved because three of the pups are beige and the other three are brown, and the beige ones are bigger, more aggressive and seem to be getting all the milk. Geordie played nursemaid a couple of times and made sure the brown ones were getting their share. Yesterday all six of them finally made it outside and started feeding on mum right next to us. When mum is not around they whimper and snuffle and move around looking for food, or they sleep. The brown ones are finally getting their share too, because they have developed the strength, thanks no doubt to Geordie's concern. And here they are, as of this morning. They are probably about a week old. When we first saw them their eyes were not even fully open. Such lovely creatures who will no doubt soon be joining the other packs of dogs on the beach howling and barking and harassing the tourists.

I will leave you with a beautiful image of a kingfisher which I took this morning at breakfast. The most available beer here in India is Kingfisher and they are so well off they even own an airline - the one we will travel on to Mumbai. This bird just flew in this morning and perched itself on a pole right outside our restaurant and stayed long enough for me to get back to our tent and return with the camera. We have not seen many birds other than the everpresent house crows on this trip, so this is a rare treat. A nice touch for our last morning here before we move on, as soon as I get back to the tent from this blogging.

Tourists Ho!

2008-02-06T20:51:00.000-08:00

We've grown tired of being beach bums and have decided to become tourists again. There are only so many times we can walk around this small area looking at buildings.

It's been awhile since we were on tour but since there is really no beach in Kochi to laze around on and there is no sit out at our hotel fo us, we needed to keep ourselves occupied with more than a round of restaurants and coffee shops,(of which there are few), so we booked a tour.

Our tour was described as lasting 7 hours - 10 hours later when we dragged ourselves back to our little homestay we were tired and just wanted to rest. We had booked the backwaters tour through the homestay - a theoretical three hours on a small canoe and four hours on a converted rice boat with lunch included. The three hours on canoe did happen, but the four hours was only two with lunch provided on a little island, but that was no problem as you will find out. First here's Geodie on one of the small canoes, which are being poled along by a man standing at the back.

The three hour portion of the tour was along some small tributaries of the larger waterways in the area. We poled past small houses, jungle areas, and beautiful plants hanging over the water or floating in it, like waterlilies, hibiscus and banana plants. Our first stop was at a rope making village along the way. It was a fascinating look at local industry. The women in the villages all work in cooperatives making rope from coir which is the fiber inside coconut husks.

First the husks are soaked in water for six months to soften the fibers and get them ready for spinning. After the fibes are dry they are delivered to the women who work together to make the ropes. Where we were there were three women working together, one operating a spinning wheel mader from a bicycle wheel, and two creating the ropes. The process is really amazing - the women have huge mounds of fibers held in their skirts and after attaching a small amount of the fiber to the wheel, they begin walking backwards, while the husks intertwine, almost like magic, pulling itself from the mounds. The work goes fast; while we were there the women must have made about half a dozen hanks of rope. The rope is finally collected by the coops to be made into coir mats, or larger ropes, and other craft work. And they get paid once a year - talk about faith!

After the visit to the rope village we went on to a spice farm where we were introduced to many of the plants which produce the spices for which of course India became famous in the first place. We saw pepper vines, nutmeg trees (mace comed from them too), bay leaf which I first identifed as clove because the aroma of cloves was so strong. The guide told us it was also called allspice which I have certainly never heard before - the allspice I know is a berry, so I learned something new I guess.

Here's another view of the narrow waterways.

From the waterways we went back to the transport van and were taken to another area where we were picked up by the houseboat - which of course isn't a houseboat since it doesn't have bedrooms, but it did have seats for us to sit and enjoy the view as we were poled along.

We had lunch first though. It was served on a little island in the river, and done properly for south India - on a banana leaf. And this time I managed to get a couple of pictures for you. Note Geordie's fingers.

Our boat tour only lasted two hours which was actually good, since we were being poled along and the progress is slow to say the least. Our poler used a 20 foot pole which he first dropped into the water,then pushed against it to propel us as far as possible and then continued pushing, walking down the prow of the boat until he had run out of pole when he started the whole thing over again. His arms and legs are obviously very strong. We were all ready to go home when he finally pulled in next a bridge where we found our vehicle waiting and got to drive back - a bit less than an hour's drive.

Next Day!

We weren't finished with touring you know. Yesterday, Wednesday, we decided we would walk to the Raja's palace and Jew Town which are next each other on the far side of Kochi from where we were staying. The palace was built by the Dutch and given to the Raja of Kochi to appease him when they came to take over. It's not a very exciting palace although it does have remarkable frescoes painted on the walls. These frescoes illustrate the fables and stories of the Mahayana and other significant books of Indian mythology. There are no photos for you since photography is not allowed, but I must tell you that one of the highlights is a very clear fesco of Krishna pleasuing eight women at once - using his six arms and two legs!

From there we made our way to Jew Town. The Jews of Kochi have a very long history. According to the history presented in pictures on the walls of the small museum in the synagogue they arrived after having left the Temple of Solomon, some 500 years BCE. Another story has them arriving in Kochi in about 100 BCE. In any case they were given land and even a crown providing them with rights to the area from the local raja. Unfortunately the population was decimated when the Inquisition arrived from Portugal in the 1600's. There is still a small population here though although it is certainly not growing at all.

On the tower of the Synagogue is a clock with the numbers written in what I presume is Hebrew.

Again no photos were allowed inside but I was very impressed with the number of crystal chandliers hanging from the ceiling along with blown glass globes which would hold candles. The building carries a strong sense of history perhaps because it is to us something so incongruous in India. I did get a picture of the gate outside the Synagogue which shows two menorah.

From the Synagogue we went to walk in the neighbourhood. The streets here are full of spice warehouses and the aroma of ginger and other spices is strong in the air.

There are also lots of shops selling the usual tourist claptrap, just like every other market area where tourists congregate. We did buy something though - a bag of pepper corns, and a tube of toothpaste made by Himalaya Products, which contains Neem extact from the Neem tree which is what the locals use to brush their teeth.

This has been a long blog, and again I've managed to put in lots of pictures. I'll leave you with two more tourist images, one with very personal meaning for me. We went for a walk in the evening and along the way discovered Addy's Restaurant, which was housed in a building built in 1776, the same year as The American War of Independence. But what made it personal for me was that Addy was my father's middle name! It's rather an unusual name I know, and for my father was a name passed down in his family. I discovered some years ago when I did a little genealogical research back in Newfoundland that the name was the last name of a Methodist minister - and that it was common practice for families to use a name such as that as a token of the esteem the minister had in the family.

Of course we ate dinner there last night and I must say the food was excellent. So good that we may go back there tonight for our last evening meal in Kochi.

And finally - on our walk we came to a small beach where we found a man selling fresh squeezed orange juice. We decided we needed some refreshment, so we had the man squeeze some for us. Another man, a local was also enjoying a glass - he paid 10 rupees for the pleasure - we paid 25. That's what we get for being tourists!

Little Lisbon

2008-02-04T02:58:00.000-08:00

We arrived in Kochi yesterday more than an hour earlier than we thought we would. According to our guidebook it should have taken five hours by the train. What may be even more miraculous was that the train was on time! Actually there were two trains on time. Both the Mumbai to Kanyakumari train and the one from Kanyakumari to Mumbai were arriving within three minutes of each other in Varkala and were indeed there at the times scheduled. This is a first for us in India.

After some negotiation witht the tuk-tuk driver we got a ride to our reserved hotel. It is good that we reserved because the driver was so hopeful that we would need his help to find a hotel - of course if we were to take his advice the price of the hotel would go up to pay his commission. He even tried to get our hotel to acknowledge his delivering us, but they were having none of it, thank heaven.

We went over several quite modern bridges on our way to Fort Cochin where our hotel is located, until finally the driver pulled up at the edge of the water. For a moment we were nonplussed until we realized that this was a ferry embarkation point and we were going to get a little sea voyage. (It takes less than five minutes to cross the water from the island we were on to the Fort Cochin peninsula.) Unfortunately for one of the motorcyclists hoping to get on the ferry, the pilot took off a little early and he drove off the dock onto the edge of the rocks. Everyone on the ferry watched as the poor man tried to figure out how to get his motocycle back on to the land. He didn't fall into the briny luckily, if one can call that luck.

And if I'm lucky, here's a picture of Geordie standing on the deck of the ferry among the people and the vehicles.

Kochi is a great surprise. It is really quite charming and the buildings make it feel as if we are in some small village in Europe. Of course it was once a Portuguese port and the influence they had along with the Dutch who arrived later to take over and the English who took over after that. This may not be a perfect picture but it does give a little of the flavour of the town. Many of the buildings are low, one story or two story affairs some with mouldering walls and some with fresh coats of paint, but all with red tiled roofs showing the signs of their age.

This is really a very old town of course. This afternoon on our walk we visited the Church of St. Francis where Vasco da Gama was buried after his death on Christmas Eve, 1524. (Check out his biography.) His gravestone is still in the church although his body was removed to Lisbon about 14 years after he died. Here's an interior view of the church today; it too went through Portuguese, Dutch and English hands although today it's under the aegis of the Church of South India which is we think similar to the Church of England. A plaque on the wall celebrates the visit of Queen Elizabeth II in 1997.

St. Francis wasn't the only church we saw. Here's a picture of the facade of Santa Cruz of which I have little history. It does have a more interesting facade than that of St. Francis, and is, I think, a Basilica now.

While we were visiting Santa Cruz, we ran into a wedding - one of many we have seen on our travels. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera at the time, and when I went back with it although the wedding was still in progress the priest was intoning - no doubt enjoining them to go out and mulitply. I got a nice photo of four of the young women ahead of me in the church, and one of the interior for you too.

We ate breakfast today at a place called The Teapot, a little bit of merrie olde England perhaps with many many teapots decorating the place - even one with Henry VIII on it. Across the street we watched as children arrived to start school. They all wear uniforms and since there were several schools in the neighbourhood we got to see several different styles. Later in the afternoon we were on our way back from a little wander when we ran into a group of school children on their way home by tuk-tuk. One of them ran up and asked for a picture. So here they are, with their bookbags hanging from the side of the vehicle and them all crammed inside.

A last little bit of history for you. Kochi is famous for its amazing fishing nets which are a legacy of Kublai Khan. Yes, you read right. This process of fishing was brought here by the Chinese centuries ago. The nets are huge affairs which are made from large wooden pieces, lots of rope, stone counterweights, a large net, and the strength of four men is needed to operate them. We watched the men who put their backs into raising the huge nets from the sea, then go out to the nets to scoop up the fish which have found their way inside. The crows find it very exciting too, and they love to swoop in to grab up the tiny fish which would of course not be much use to the fishermen and would no doubt be thrown back in.

This has been a nice photo heavy blog. Hope you enjoy seeing some of what we see. Tomorrow we are going on a backwater cruise from here, on one of the old converted rice boats which have been pressed into service for the tourists these days. I'm hoping for lots of interesting pictures since we will also get to do a little canoe touring to small villages along the way. Since this has been such a successful picture loading place you may well get another load day after tomorrow with some of the images from our 7 hour trip. Until then I leave you with this image of the Arabian Sea as the sun starts to get lower. I thought it looked wonderful, my art photo for today.

Cable? What Cable?

2008-02-02T00:51:00.000-08:00

It's amazing to think that a cable under the Mediterranean sea can cause so much trouble. And even more amazing that for some reason we can still access Gmail and Google even when all other access seems to be non-existent. No matter, it means I can still blog a little and keep people up to date on our travels.

This is our last day in Varkala. We will miss our sit-out, although Geordie says my swinging in the hammock all day is making him queasy. Well, if he insists on using both chairs to sit and lounge only leaving me the hammock, so be it. We have enjoyed ourselves, going on walks along the red brick path, watching the birds swoop over, having a nice bowl of salad and a plate of roasted potatoes, going for the evening walk up the steps past all the restaurants to choose the one where we will sit and wait and wait and wait until our food is finally delivered. And maybe have a beer or two sometimes served in a teapot and always the bottle hidden behind the table leg so that the police going by won't know we are having a beer. How a frosty glass on the table can be confused with anything other than a beer is beside the point it seems. There is some reason, I'm sure, why we cannot show we are actually having a beer, even though the restaurants all have drinks menus and one of them even offers a happy hour.

We head to Kochi, which is also known as Cochin, tomorrow morning by train. The trip takes about five hours so we will have to stock up on some tasty treats for the trip - cookies, potato chips, the usual... Perhaps I should look for some of the really tasty oranges we have found in India and some of the beautiful sweet bananas we have also enjoyed.

There's only a month left in our trip, and some of you have figured out that we are just a little homesick. Sometimes even the idea of ice and snow sounds positively lovely, although 35 degrees celsius here compared to - 35 celsius in Calgary is a little positive encouragement to stay where we are. And I'm sure when we get home the rain of the lower Mainland will soon have us pining for sunshine.

Men at Work

2008-01-28T23:47:00.000-08:00

Geordie commented yesterday on my ability tosay so much about so little. When there's not much to do, one still has to share. Today we went for a nice long and very hot walk along the red brick path heading north and discovered that it was a very busy day for the fishermen. We have been up the path before but this is the first time I have seen so many men working at their nets and their boats here. There were lots in Kovalam, and there are certainly many many boats out fishing at night here - it's like watching a little city on the waves from our restaurant viewpoint.

The men here work in cooperatives. I don't think I've mentioned that this is the first democratically elected Commnuist government in India (maybe in the world).On the way through the state one sees the red flags along the side of the road displaying the hammer and sickle.

It's amazing to see the men all working together to organize their nets. They seem to have miles of them laid out on the sand and they have been spending hours organizing them in the hot sun. I took a few pictures of them toiling - how they cope with such hard work in such hot weather is beyond me. I guess they are acclimatized and I'm not.

The computer is not cooperating with me right now. I'm having a hard time getting the images to load. I do want to add a couple of pictures though. One is a view of our small beach from Restaurant row, and the other is a picture I took of Geordie last night while he was watching the sunset.

Wow, that took forever, so I'm quitting while I'm ahead. I'll be back with more soon, I'm sure. Until then...

Varkala Daze

2008-01-26T22:01:00.001-08:00

I've added a counter to my blog (which took far too long) and when I checked discovered there had been 14 hits since yesterday afternoon. I think that means time for a new entry. It's been long enough, although we are of course doing little exciting except lazing around on a hammock and enjoying the sound and sight of the sea from our "sit-out" here in Varkala.

We arrived in Varkala from Kovalam after only an hour and a half taxi ride which included going through the capital city of Kerala, called Thiruvanthapuram (more simply called Trivandrum which is easier to roll off the tongue. Along the way I realized that Kovalam does not have a monopoly on coconut palms. The entire state seems to be covered with them - it's a marvellous sight.

The driver found our hotel easily - it's at the far end of the village area and a ways from the main strip. The main part of the tourist scene is along a cliff, with a red brick path about four feet wide passing in front of all the establishments, restaurants, hotels, shops, chemists. On the other side of the red brick path is a sheer drop to the sea. I'm not a good judge of height, but if we fall off we are goners. When we walk the path we keep to the inside as much as we can - a moment of vertigo and it's over. The little children who play along there should be equipped with parachutes!

Our hotel as I say is away from all that - we have a short walk to reach the pathway and then a bit of a walk up before we reach the more popular restarants

I have been down to the little beach in front of our hotel once, two days ago, and found the waves just a little too rough. The sea bottom is shallow though, so as long as one keeps one's head, and watches the waves, it's not really dangerous. Just stay upright and wait for the big wave to deposit one back down. Maybe I'll go again this afternoon, and maybe I'll even get Geordie to come with me. He can be life guard if he's not swimming.

We went for a long walk along the path away from the village two days ago - it seems to go on for miles. There are other hotels further out than ours, so I'm thankful we are not in one of those. I would not relish the thought of having to stay there and walk into town of an evening for dinner. It would mean eating most of our meals at the hotel, which could get boring in 10 days.

Along the path we were witness to the sight of birds wheeling above us. I have a feeling they are the birds used in crossword puzzles - sea eagles, or ernes, or erns, depending on the needs of the puzzle - is that three letters of four? The males of the species are white-fronted while their top wings are a gorgeous red-brown. The females are dark brown top and bottom, but they are all wonderful fliers who swoop around the palms, the cliffs and down to the sea for dinner then back up again. Mind you, getting a picture of one is a feat. I used my multiple shot feature and ended up deleting about 20 pictures of blank sky. The picture I did get was blind luck.

One of the main differences between Kovalam and Varkala is the age of the tourists. In Kovalam we were surrounded by folk like us, people of a certain age, many of them on package holidays from Britain. Our hotel was in fact a package place and there was even an onsite rep for the visitors who helped them arrange tours and smoothed the way for them. Here in Varkala I'm guessing the average age is more like 27, and the facilities reflect that. The restaurant we ate in our first night is called the Rock N Roll Cafe, (the music on the sound system was in fact most enjoyable - not too loud for the old fogies and not too on the edge - not even standard reggae).

While we were on our walk we found another reflection of the youthful draw in Varkala - we were offered smoke or marijuana four times. And yesterday Geordie went for a walk there by himself while I lazed around and was again offered some relaxing herbs. At least they aren't discriminating against us for age. And no we haven't taken them up on the offer. One young man in front of us at the Rock N Roll did smoke at least three small spliffs while he awaited his meal, and had a beer or two at the same time.

About the food - restaurants on the backpack trail seem to think they must be all things to all peope. The place we ate last night is a case in point. It's called the Clafouti, a French name, although they also offer the Pumpernickel Bakery on the same premises. The menu offers - American, British and Indian Breakfasts, Thai food, Italian pizza and pasta, Hungarian Goulash, Chinese food, Mexican and yes, even Indian food, along with lots of fresh seafood prepared often in Indian flavours. Oh, and for the French, ChatuBriand (sic). And of course no self-respecting restaurant would not offer Banana pancakes, chocolate pancakes, coconut pancakes - they are a mainstay of tourist haunts the world over. We've certainly had them in Thailand, Laos and Viet Nam and I'm guessing they are available in Nepal, Tibet and anywhere else considered the backpacker trail.

I'll leave you here with an image from the setting sun two nights ago. We went down to see the sun set into the Arabian Sea - here the sun sets directly out in the water - this is a very straight coast line and there is no curve of shore or bend of bay to hide the sun as it drops. However the everpresent mist means that the sun doesn't exactly sizzle in the water but disappears in a haze.

We are here for another week, and will no doubt have things to tell you about again in a day or two. Stay tuned.

What's for Dinner?

2008-01-22T21:15:00.001-08:00

Geordie and I have only one night left here in Kovalam and last night went out to dinner at Fusion, probably the best restaurant on the beach. We dressed up in our finery and had a lovely evening within sound and the sight of the Arabian Sea. Of course we wore our new shirts both made by the same tailor in a back alley of the town. My shirt is orange silk with a blue tree shape woven in, while Geordie's is white cotton with a band of gold. And just for you, here we are.

We began dinner by having a pretty expensive drink, but it was necessary because it was called a Bees Knees, which is the name of our daughter Holli's online children's knitting patterns website. Two pictures here, the second one shows the detail on Geordie's shirt - such finery.

Dinner was from the very extensive and creative menu - Fusion offers three different menu options, East, West and Fusion. After the Bees Knees Geordie ordered Asian Calamari from the Fusion menu, which came with lovely crusty calamari whose batter had a nice spicy kick, served along with nice crunchy stir-fried vegetables and basmati rice. I got to taste one of the calamari, which was delicious. The small bowl on his plate is a dip of soy, lime and chili which added nice oomph.

For my own meal, I ordered from the Eastern Menu - a bowl of very tasty chunks of fish in a rich sauce of coconut milk and pureed lentils (which I would have called dal, if I hadn't been told differently) as well as chunks of tomato. It was quite delicious, rich in flavour and certainly spicy too. Thank heaven for the big mound of basmati rice to help cool my mouth.

We decided that since we were already going all out we would have dessert too. From the Fusion menu I decided to have the Stewed Apples with Chili and Cinnamon, topped with Vanilla Ice Cream which was a revelation - hot as hell, cool as heaven. The fruit was chunked and still warm. The dessert was decorated with a whole stewed chili and a sliver of the cinnamon stick. I avoided chewing on either. I'm sure I can recreate this recipe at home; I just have to make sure I'm careful with the chili flavour.

Geordie's dessert was Grilled Pineapple with Vanilla Ice Cream which appeared in what appeared to be a cast-iron bowl, heated under the grill, set on a ring of twisted rope and underlain with a white paper napkin which had been artfully torn to create a rough scalloped edge. The pineapple was lovely, but the ice cream was melting furiously so Geordie had to gobble it up fast. I did get a taste before he finished it though, as he got a taste of mine.

Our table held a flower decoration I thought you might like to see. There must be huge marigold farms in this country because the flowers are everywhere. This lovely bowl contained fresh golden marigolds as did decorations at other tables. On the floor nearby was a large bowl, about two feet across, full of marigold blossoms too with a small butter lamp glowing brightly at its centre.

Tonight we are going to have dinner with a couple we met at our hotel. Marilyn and Trevor are from St. Ives which of course always sets me off with the nursery rhyme, but I've resisted reciting it in their presence. They are well-travelled too, and have whet our appetite to go back to Turkey. They talked glowingly about a place they stay there called Dalian (can't guarantee that spelling) where they rent a cottage set among lemon groves. Doesn't that sound heavenly.

I'll wear my newest just tailored shirt which I picked up yesterday. It's in white with both a gold and a silver stripe in the material, (all through, not just as trim), but I doubt that will show up well in pictures, of which there are none yet anyway. I had the tailor modify it from a short sleeved shirt, asked to have a collar added, and got him to measure for the neck and sleeves. I'll wear it tonight so may get a picture of it then.

I'll leave you here with a couple of images from this morning. I discovered that I have a panoramic feature in my camera so took a photo showing the palm grove but used a close up and also got a couple of people in the shot for the first one. The second is one of our neighbourhood raucous house crows. Hmmm, reminds me of home, although these crows don't really look exactly like the ones we have at home. The crow is a little fuzzy, but you will get some sense of how it looks with its grey neck and its relatively skinny body. They are just as noisy as our crows though and they flock in the evening making lots of noise in their chosen trees.

By the way, some of you may not be aware that you can click on the pictures here and get to see a larger version. Unfortunately the images are much too big for the computer screen. Have fun exploring.

Entertainment and Industry

2008-01-19T22:12:00.000-08:00

It's quiet, too quiet! It's been awhile since I wrote, but then again, it's been awhile since we've had any news from home too. (I'm needy!) And I'm afraid everyone is going to be disappointed because we have not been moving around. Yes we have been at the same place now for more than a week - and will in fact have spent 13 days here before moving on. We don't move until next Thursday when we head off for Varkkala (or is that Varkala, around here spellings are changeable).

I told you we were staying in a palm grove so I thought you might like to have an idea of what that might look like. You won't see the hotel, but here are the coconut palms.

And since I mentioned the fishermen out hauling their nets (and boats too), here's a picture of that.

We've gotten a little touristy. Our hotel presents a Kathakali show once a week and we went to see the one that was on last week. The process of watching is interesting. First one gets to watch the artists put on their makeup which took an hour and a half. It' entertaining, but a little slow. Their's a lot of makeup to put on, since they paint their whole face with patterns and in the case of the "main actor" there are paper circles which are applied below the lip, which I think are intended to make the actor look ferocious. The characters are demons who are represented in the mythical lives of the Hindu pantheon of gods.

In this picture you get to see one of the demons preparing. The character is female and at one point in the performance turns himself into a beautiful maiden who tempts the other demon until he gets angry. Then the demon turns back into a woman and demon number two chops off her nose, ears and I think breasts. (The demon had a lovely pair of black breasts which were somewhat like small rockets.) Here's the black faced demon preparing his face and the green faced demon getting close to finishing.

The music accompanying this presentation is percussion - two drums beat there are small finger cymbals and some high pitched singing from one of the musicians. Everyone is male by the way, including the beautiful maiden who wears quite bright pink makeup and a cute little curlicue of painted hair by her ears. Here are all three performers in complete regalia, taking their bows at the end of the performance.

We went to another Kathakali performance last night on the beach. It was presented free on a makeshift stage and was another episode in the long play - did I mention that the whole performance takes 41 days? (I know I didn't, just wanted the shock value!) The performance last night took only 50 minutes, but with only one performer working in mime, it was a long time for us. There was a great funny part though where the character found the baby Krishna (or gave birth, not sure about that). She was breast feeding, in mime of course and couldn't get Krishna off her breast, even though she tried tugging beating, and pushing with both hands. It was the highlight of the performance, honest. Otherwise it's lots of facial expressions, hand movements and a little dancing. Geordie leaned over and said it was a lot like watching paint dry, and I responded that it was more like listening to paint dry, since there is no dialogue. We are such philistines!

And of course one needs to have a look at one of the musicians. Here is the main drummer whose drum appeared to be a big pot with a small mouth, covered in a drum skin and pounded with the flat of his hands.

After the performance we decided to eat at one of the many seafood restaurants on the promenade. After examining all the fish on display outside the restaurant I chose a huge grouper for both of us to share, simply grilled and served with butter rice which includes raisins and cashew nuts. As an aside this is the cashew nut capital of the world I think - certainly the cashew nuts they grow are exported around the world. They are available in all the little shops and we can even get a pound of them, unroasted, at our hotel. Haven't asked the price.

Now for all the vegetarians here, please avert your eyes, since the next picture is our lovely grouper resplendent on its plate surrounded by thin slices of cucumber. The flesh of the fish was very sweet, with a lovely taste and cost a whole 10 dollars for two. With the rice and two bottles of beer (660 ml at 90 rupees each) our meal cost a princely 630 rupees or a whole 15 dollars. (note the beer is in a large tankard with a horse head on it - this is a dry state and even though it's ok to see beer, apparently it's not ok to see it.The bottles are always delivered wrapped in newspaper and usually poured into glasses or mugs where the colour can't be seen.)

Here's a little industry for you. Near our place in the coconut grove we have watched this woman weaving palm fronds which serve as walls around some of the simple huts the people live in. They were also used to hide the performers on the beach last night. Interesting how people develop these different ways of using the natural environment. In Puerto Vallarta palms are used to make the palapas to shade the tourists, but here they use umbrellas for that purpose - it's surprising that the idea didn't develop independently here and that palm frond weaving is not a Mexican pastime.

There's lots of other industry around here. I had a nice tailor sew me up a silk shirt, long sleeved, with pocket, although he couldn't finish ironing it because of a power outage. There are no pictures. Geordie is about to have a shirt made for him. Quite different, in cotton, and designed especially for him so if everything works out, I will have to find someone to take a photo of both of us to show off.

I hope you have enjoyed this picture heavy blog. I haven't done much of it as I've gone along because it seemed to take forever, but I've found a way around it. I'm sure everyone else has figured out that if you copy the picture to the desktop it goes much faster than attempting to load it directly from the camera disk, and doesn't stress the camera so much either.

I look forward to hearing from a few of you now. We have our regulars sending mail, but there are lots of people we would love to hear from. If you don't want to use the comments page you can always send an email. We have only a month left now before we head home from India. Geordie is at another computer attempting to find a train out of Varkkala to take us north. We head for Varkkala next Thursday as I said. Booking it online was a bit of an adventure but it finally got done and we will spend another 10 days there. I must really get down to the beach more to work on my tan. The face is dark but the rest of my body only sees the sun for about an hour in the afternoon when I go swim for a bit in the lovely pool which is part of our hotel complex.

And so to lunch, and a nice trip to the pool. It's hot and we need the coolness since our room is unairconditioned to save money.

Green Green

2008-01-12T22:11:00.000-08:00

We've gone upscale, non A/C! Two days ago we arrived in Kovalam, a small resort area on the Arabian Sea, which is a mini Puerto Vallarta with it's tiny (five foot wide) malecon passing by shops and restaurants in front of a beautiful crash of surf. The beach is not perfect - some black sand mixed with the fine brown sand, making it look dirty, but the sound of the surf is lovely.

Our hotel is back aways though, amongst the swaying fronds of a palm grove (which is the name of its restaurant). We have a huge room - a suite in fact, big enough to have a three person yoga class in front of our bed (king sized) and a long sit out (balcony to the uninitiated) which itself looks at more palm trees. There is a small Hindu temple down the road aways with a long drone of music for parts of the day. We have a sitting room too, with its own fan, and another bed in case we have a fight or something. The bathroom is nice white tiles and the room is kept spotless by the invisible staff.

Now about that air conditioning. We booked non a/c to save money, and we thought the hotel was on the beach and we would have sea breezes. Not so, it is back inland aways and there is no breeze so it's pretty hot. We then thought what the hell - we'll ask for air conditioning and pay extra - hah! It's another 30 dollars extra so we'll just take the fan. In fact it's quite pleasant to sit outside on the balcony most of the day, since the place is mostly in shade all day.

Kerala is the next state up the coast from Tamil Nada and is so so green. The vegetation is lush and the colours are very rich. We drove again, and on the way even got a little culture in since our driver asked if we wanted to stop at the Padmanabhapuram Palace which although in Tamil Nadu is considered the finest surviving example of traditional Keralan architecture. It's even administered from Kerala. This palace was once where the rulers of Travancore had their administrative and cultural centre - Travancore being another small state squashed in between TN and KR.

The palace is huge and quite empty of furniture, except for two beds - one owned by the king which was given him by the Dutch East India Company, and the other by the queen. The entire building is constructed of wood and granite and we were told by one of the many guides stationed throughout the building that it is the largest wooden palace in all of Asia. And it's large - it took us an hour to walk through, getting our bits of information from the strategically located guides, looking around, marvelling at the ceiling in one area, made with rosewood and decorated with 90 carved flowers everyone unique. The floors are also mirror polished, using we are told, a mixture of crushed shells, coconuts, egg whites and plant juices. The dance hall is the most highly polished and is in fact called the Mirror room.

The architecture is all high ceilings with low walls. I guess people sat down to look out because it's not easy to see the views without bending down if one is standing up. It's cooler though because of the high ceilings. In one area, just to contradict myself, the entire room is carved granite, each pillar and piece carved from a single block of stone (not like Mamallapuram where the whole building is one piece of stone).

Back to the real world, Kovalam is full of package tourists. We arrived on Friday, and yesterday morning a group arrived at our hotel and settled themselves in. You can always tell because they immediately go out on their balconies to check the views. (Which is what we did too, of course.) I suppose they paid for air-conditioning and are basking in it right now. Continental breakfast is included too, and here that means, juice, coffee, lots of it, toast and eggs - gotta love those continentals. There isn't a sign of local restaurants where the folks eat off bamboo leaves, or coffee is hurled from cup to bowl. The restaurant in our place is a little pricy, but the ones on the sea wall facing the surf all have very similar menus and the prices are better. Lots of food for the people on the package tours - and us too - I confess, I had pasta our first night, but hey it was seafood pasta, so it had local food.

Speaking of seafood reminds me of what I saw yesterday. Geordie was still sleeping, I was awake so I decided to go off for a bit of walkabout. Between our hotel and the beach are those green palm groves and even some former rice paddies, but between the fields and groves are raised walkways so one doesn't have to go out to a road to get to the shops and restaurants. There are even tailors set up on the backsides of all the shops so if we wanted a shirt made we could. Out on the beach though was a sight that is probably unique to the area - teams of fishermen, hauling their nets in from the sea, like a great tug of war, and singing together all the while. Very atmospheric. I must get up in the morning and go for a few pictures.

Tonight our hotel is doing a mini version of the Kathakali Dance performances of Kerala. These are ordinarily events that go all night and maybe into the next night, but the hotel's offering is only three and a half hours. The first hour and a half is labelled as "Makeup and Dressing" and apparently it is part of the package paid for. I think it is quite the production, so we will have to pay our money and find out what it's all about. The stories are taken from the Mahayana, one of the seminal books of the India mythos, so we will probably have little idea what's going on, although we are promised ongoing commentary - tourists like us need all the help we can get.

We are settled in here for a week and then we are hoping to spend 10 days further north in another beach village called Varkkala. We've asked for a reservation and again are asking for non A/C, and the place I've requested is described as having all rooms with sea view, so if we get it, maybe we can get the sea breezes that go with them.

Clash of the Titans

2008-01-09T03:05:00.000-08:00

We've been in Kanyakumari for almost three days now. It really is the end of India - it feels like we can go no further - the land just stops and the ocean begins. Really, because this is something of a peninsula we get the sense of being surrounded by water wherever we go, except back inland and north. Here is the meeting place of the Bay of Bengal to the east, the Indian Ocean to the south and the Arabian Sea to the west.

The first titanic clash is that of these three great bodies of water with the land. The waves here are rough and crash up on rocks just off the beach. There are many pilgrims who come to bathe in the waters here and they are working to stay upright as the waves come in. And on shore the wind is strong, and almost constant. We have a very nice hotel room, with a balcony but sometimes it's almost impossible to sit out there to read with the wind rushing around flapping pages. How do the crows fly in this? Our windows rattle and bang all night although we leave the door open to get the air circulating. We booked the room as non- aircon, which is fine since there is a good fan and that wind, but there is an A/C unit in the room. Wonder if we switch it on they'll notice. Using it would add 300 Rupees to the cost of the room. (That's $7.50!)

Inland by the way the wind is going to work with a very large windmill electrical generating system. We can see the many many windmills towering over the landscape north of us in the haze of the air.

Clash number two came on waking our first morning - the clash of religions. At 5:15 the Muslim call to prayer began and almost with it began the siren call of loud music from a Hindu temple somewhere in the vicinity. And not to be outdone, the Catholic Church began ringing its bells wildly shortly after. The Hindus won out though - the siren call went on for an hour! Luckily my ear plugs are very good - too bad Geordie can't seem to use them - he depends on silicone ones which just don't do the job.

The Catholic Church wins out in the building category though. We have seen a few temples including one on the shore but the church is huge and dominates the skyline of our view. I wish I knew the correct terminalogy - is it a Romanesque church or a Gothic one? No matter, it's like something out of France or maybe it's Portugal - our lady of lourdes, fatima? There is a tall central spire, and two smaller spires at the front, and a long nave with arched ceilings. The nave is empty though - I am certain the congregation sits on the floor. The main decoration in the church is a large statue of the Virgin Mary with below her a Crucified Christ about half the size.

It's surprising that the Church wins out here. We were in a Hindu temple in Trichy on a short tour we took with a driver. The temple complex has six walls surrounding the main temple at the centre. We were able to walk through the area although we were not able to enter the final temple. There are many minor temples around it though which we were able to view. Inside one area there was a large elephant blessing the congregants who placed a penny in its trunk. Penny in, trunk went up, tapped the head of the person, then trunk over to drop the coin in the pot of the mahout manageing the elephant. (I thought the elephant was perhaps a little crazed though - it never stopped moving its trunk, even when there was no one to make an offering.)

The first three areas of the temple are so large that there are shops and stalls and even people living inside them. That's pretty impressive. We had to walk around the whole area in our bare feet which was quite uncomfortable in the area covered in sand. Today, by the way, we went for a walk in the terrible midday sun, to a village north along the shore where there is another Catholic Church just as big as the one here, although it's insides are not as impressive.

Clash number three is cricket. Our balcony looks over the back of the hotel and directly behind it is a tank. This is a large area for holding water, with steps down to it for bathing - these are common in India - but this one is dry and is host to what appears to be an all day cricket match. From after breakfast until dinner time or later there are a group of young men playing cricket, with real bats and balls but with stones for a goal. We cannot make hide nor hair of the rules. Sometimes they bat and the ball goes off into the wild and they just stand there. Then at other times they bat and the ball goes off into the wild and they run back and forth between goals. No rhyme nor reason is you ask me. We do know that if the batter hits the ball and someone on the other team catches it before it hits the ground the other team is out - we have at least learned that.

Clash the fourth. Out beyond the last bit of land are two small islands. They are connected to the main land by some very rusty looking old scows which take people over to see the monuments to two of South India's heroes. Vivekananda has a temple complex, in dark stone, domed, which marks the spot where this holy man swam out one day and spent time meditating until he decided to take off on a pilgrimage around India to take his views on peace within the Hindu idea. He is obviously revered here.

The second island has the mightier statue - this one is exactly 133 feet tall and represents the major Hindu poet Thiruvalluvar who wrote a very famous piece with exactly 133 verses. We saw his poems written on a wall when we were on our tour out of Varanasi sometime ago now. Every verse. Of course they are in Hindi so we don't understand a word.

Back on the mainland there is one other Titan, whose monument we visited yesterday. It is the memorial to Mahatma Gandhi, whose ashes were ceremoniously scattered in the water of the seas here. It is not a large place and it's in a very pastel shade of pink decorated with white, and in a very odd building, something like an old movie theatre with a rounded roof line and a squat tower next to it. But there is a hole in the rood where on October 2, Gandhi's birthday, the sun shines down on the place where his ashes were kept for the day before scattering.

We are here for one more day - then we are off to spend a week in Kovalam, a beach town in the state of Kerala. I imagine our next message will be from there. Until then, you can always get out your atlases and check the neighbourhood out.

Play With Your Food

2008-01-05T02:38:00.000-08:00

We're in South India now, and the food service here is just a little different. This is the land of no forks and knives, although you might get a small spoon. But, you are expected to eat with your hand - your right hand that is. We have hit several restaurants in the area of our hotel, including our own, although we have been avoiding that one since Geordie accidentally over-tipped. It set a precedent so when we have been there since we get over-attentive service and a waiter who hangs around after we have received the bill practically salivating. MInd you we have noticed that we are intiguing in most of the local restaurants where the waiters seem to enjoy standing next our tables watching us eat. A little unnerving, but we are coping.

Breakfast: We had our first South Indian Breakfast this morning - a Masala Dosai, which is a very large thin rice batter (I think) pancake with a filling of potato, onion and curry type flavourings along with four small pots of sauces to eat with it. Included in the sauces are a dal (split peas, but very thin), a coconutty, oniony flavoured white paste, a bright orange red sauce with a tomato base perhaps but spicy too, and a yellow-green sauce whose provenance I cannot explain, although it is tasty if also hot!

The point is to pour at least the dal or is it a sambar, onto your dosai, then place the other mixtures which are thicker, on the banana leaf provided (It's under the dosai), for dipping or mixing. With your fingers. Right hand only. It is hard to remember that, as I hold down one side with my left hand I suddenly remember to let go and do my best to tear the pancake with only my right hand.

We had coffee with it too - milk coffee which is served with a small metal cup, and a bigger open bowl. The coffee is poured from bowl to cup to bowl, repeatedly, ostensibly to cool the coffee although I think it also serves to mix the sugar in. Not being a fan of sweet coffee, I don't mind leaving the sugar in the bottom of the cup. The coffee has been tasty though, so no complaints.

Lunchtime: Here is where the thali comes to the fore. Usually the locals are provided with a large banana leaf which they first wet down, pouring the rest onto the table which I suspect sticks it to the surface. Then they are given dabs of diferent mixtures again, similar to the breakfast sauces although there are a few more - including a really sour yogourt which I can't bring myself to eat, and a raita of the same yogourt with slices of red onion. The sambar is the most liquid of the sauces. These dabs are provided by men who walk around with their containers, three of them attached and adding piles of the mixtures if you want more. It's all you can eat, by the way.

Onto the banana leaf is then piled a heap of steaming white rice, and a big poppadom is added as well (that's a crunchy yellow cracker like bread, a little spicy, very crispy). The trick is to mix the flavourings into the rice with your fingers, getting it good and saucy, then pinching up a pile with the fingertips and stuffing it into your mouth. The locals seem better at it than me, no doubt it's the practice, but we have been doing fine. I haven't yet dropped a heap onto my trousers. I watched a woman nonchalantly mixing everything, doing the mixing over and over until she seemed to have created an almost solid object to pop into her mouth. I'm not as efficient.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that the first thing one does before eating is go to the hand washing facility and wash up. Everybody does it, so we have to remind ourselves to do it too. Don't want to look gauche.

One little thing - they don't seem to trust us. We have been getting what appears to be similar food as everyone else, but we are given ours on a metal platter, with a banana leaf cut to fit. We don't know for sure if ours is different - the dishes of savouries all look very similar to the rest but we just aren't getting the big banana leaf thing. I would prefer that because when you are finished you show it by folding your banana leaf at the centre rib, enclosing your mess and having a nice tidy package for the cleaning people to get rid of. Notice by the way how bio-friendly this is - everything is biodegradable, although I don't know how they get rid of the stuff - burning?, just dumped in the garbage?

Dinner is not different - it does seem that thalis are the order of the day at lunchtime while meals are smaller in the morning and evening. There are other choices of breakfast dishes too - iddlys which are small steamed rice puffs served with sambars, vadai which looks like a thick fried doughnut served with sambars again and no doubt things we have yet to identify.

It's all vegetarian too - lots of potatoes, cauliflower, carrot, onion, tomato, green beans and nary a bit of meat. Several restaurants in the area advertise non-veg so there are other choices, but we haven't tried any. Another option is Chinese food - fried noodles, manchurian flavoured dishes, and several things which are named but also have added the number 65, such as Noodles 65. We have no idea what it is, although I suspect it's a flavouring, probably comes in a bottle, hence the ease of name, anything with sauce 65 being so identified.

We think we are losing a little weight finally - maybe there is something to this vegetarian thing, although I must say, almost all the flavours are very similar, a la curry. I think the variety comes in the degree of heat, and the hot, sweet, salty sour flavours.

This is definitely not a tourist town which explains the fact that the food is geared to the locals. Once we hit a beach town where tourists hang out we will again be able to get eggs, omelets, toast, maybe porridge (lots of that in the north), banana or honey or chocolate pancakes and mixtures thereof. It's not exactly like home but there is the sense of it being comfort food so occasionally one just has to have it.

We are heading to the tip of India tomorrow evening, to another nontourist town, so we will be continuing to eat thalis. Maybe tomorrow we will convince the restaurant to give us a real thali complete with banana leaf - if we point and insist. There is one advantage to the food here though - it's cheap. This morning's breakfast cost a grand total of 65 rupees - that's about $1.50, for two people, yes, 75 cents each. Oh and that was with two coffees for me and one for Geordie. We have paid as much as 150 rupees here too, so it's not always so cheap (smile - what makes $2.00 a person expensive?).

We will be searching out another restaurant tonight - we are trying all of them, so we are having fun. Tomorrow we don't leave town until 10:40 pmor whenever the train arrives after that (an hour or two?), so we still have time to get that real thali. No matter, my fingers are at the ready, as soon as I go clean them, so we will enjoy the food no matter what.

Have Horn, Will Travel

2008-01-03T23:41:00.000-08:00

We arrived in Trichy yesterday after a five hour drive from Pondicherry. Confession time - we did not travel by bus, but by private car. It seemed so much more civilized. I imagine people will stop reading the blog now that we have become car travellers and have stopped having bus adventures!

By the way, Trichy's official name is Tiruchchirappalli or something similarly spelled. Geordie was afraid we might have gone to the wrong hotel since there are a lot of long-named towns in this area starting with the letter T. But the hotel had a reservation for us and everything matched up with the map we had so looks like we got to the right place.

The drive was almost incident free. We came close to wiping out two children on a bicycle who drove onto the highway without bothering to look our way. The driver screeched to a halt, the children fell off the bike and then we continued on our way. The kids looked more shocked than injured, don't worry. Geordie wondered aloud that it was a surprise that the kids seemed to grow up, what with the traffic they deal with.

The five hour drive was a 225 km trip, so we didn't make really good time like we might in Canada. About half that distance was along a terrible road, which is being rebuilt as a four lane highway. It is the second worst road I have ever been on, after the one we drove in Zambia. At a few places the road had been recently surfaced so the driver drove up to a 100 km an hour. I worried that he would have had little experience driving at that speed. Most of the time was spent driving at about 50 to 60 km an hour, except in towns and villages where 20 was fast and the worst potholed sections which were a matter of weaving around potholes, motorcycles, giant trucks, crowded buses, bullock carts and overloaded farm equipment! I spent 10 minutes counting the beeps the driver made on his horn, and it worked out to 8.8 per minute. That's close to 500 per hour, so 2500 for the trip. I'm sure this is a good estimate because that 20 minutes was counted over some country driving and some village driving (yes in the same 10 minutes).

Along the way we saw lots of amazing sights. Part of the area is for sugar cane and the farm vehicles were heaped about 10 to 12 feet above the upper level of the cart's walls. And the trucks are often bulging at the seams with huge tarps hiding the unidentifiable loads. Of course as well as carrying lots of people, the motor bikes are used for delivery too - and often it's some long load carried sideways. I saw what looked like a beam for a small house carried blithely held on by the driver's feet. There was another driver who had a huge basket between him and the handlebars. The bad news is that these motorcyclists are ignored by the car and bus drivers who pull out to pass other cars, trucks or buses without any regard for motorcyles. Every motorcycle for itself I guess and survival of the fittest. How did we not see any accidents?

When we arrived at Trichy it was a blessing to get out of the car. The fact that our hotel is across the street from the bus station means we get a cacophony of horns from there as well. We talked about looking for another hotel and did a survey of several within walking distance but a bit further removed from the station. But last night the noise quieted down quite a lot and with the sound of the air conditioner, it was quite bearable. Besides this morning we woke to find someone had slipped a copy of the Indian Express newspaper under the door so we got our dose of news without even having to go out and find a paper at a restaurant.

So here we stay for three more days. We are taking the train next - an overnighter from here to the very tip of India at Kanyakumari (I can't guarantee that spelling) - it's also known as Cape Comorin. It is the meeting of the Bay of Bengal, the India Ocean and the Arabian Sea so there will no doubt be a lot of water. I wonder how they work out the borders of oceans amd seas anyway.

There will be another blog later. We have to tell you about the food here. It's a little different from where we have been so it deserves its own entry. Later.

Bonne Annee de Pondicherry

2007-12-31T21:50:00.000-08:00

Well friends, here in Pondicherry it is 2008, while most of you are still living in 2007 (although not my family in Newfoundland, they are just a little ahead of everyone else in North America).

Last night we celebrated the New Year early. At 6:45 we heard sounds which we first interpreted as noise from the bar next door to us, but after it had gone on too long we realized we must investigate. We headed out, dressed for the evening and walked over to the seaside promenade where we were in time to see the last few of a 15 minute salvo of fireworks.

Everyone was out celebrating it seemed. There were thousands on the street and on the promenade and when we got down to the Gandhi statue we discovered a live band playing their loudest for us. There were few other tourist faces in sight, this was a show for the locals obviously and they were enjoying the music too. There was a ferris wheel in the background going around at far too fast a pace I thought, but then I find merry-go-rounds fast too, even playground ones. It was the first time the ferris wheel had been in operation so it felt like that much more a celebration of the new year.

We spent at least a half hour watching the large band perform and sing their Hindi Bollywood songs (the band leader said they were!), and then wandered into the streets to find our last dinner of 2007. We found it at Le Rendezvous, a nice roof top place where we were seated right next the stairway and me opposite the waiters so I got lots of entertainment watching them do very little. One of them was a dead ringer for a very young Clark Gable, with the moustache and the sideburns of Gone With the Wind, except for his very dark skin - yes, even his facial features were Clark Gableish.

Dinner was seafood - Geordie had the Silver Pomfret, a whole fish, that looked just a little like a find from the aquarium, while I had Tiger Prawns grilled in garlic butter sauce. We could have had turkey, but somehow I felt that having turkey in India would not be a substitute for turkey at home - I didn't want to risk it.

We enjoyed our meal with a couple of beers, not exactly champagne but it was bubbly - a local Kingfisher for me and an Australian Foster's for Geordie. They were just fine! I even had dessert - a rather vapid chocolate mousse, but it was only 60 rupees, what's to lose?

After our celebratory dinner we went back to our apartment. I know, I know, why weren't we going back to the seawall for the fireworks, the party, the fun, fun, fun? Well, we have read that it is not always wise to hang out with the locals when they are in a party mood, and after our walk this morning I think it may have been wise. Mind you last night just after we arrived we were witness to the arrival of about 50 policemen, armed with their ever-present lathi sticks, a nice bamboo weapon which I would not enjoy raining down on my back (I'm always good, so it wouldn't happen, don't worry.) This morning when we went for our lovely after breakfast walk we discovered that the poor mosquito thingy had taken quite a beating - it's proboscis was no longer in place, and its sides were now bare of their plaster. Something happened to it last night and I guess we might have found out if we had been there for the fireworks.

An explanation of the opening picture is in order now. The decoration you see was created freehand, probably by a local woman who uses first white salt to outline the design she plans and then coloured salts to fill it in. The designs are all over the streets - they seem to be a welcome to guests who arrive at your doorstep and are often painted on the street itself, just as the one illustrating this blog entry is. We saw others being made today, and it was amazing to watch the women creating the complex designs so effortlessly.

Finally, a couple of pictures of Geordie and I which I though you might enjoy seeing. I thought it was a good time to show them off since the camera was still connected to this computer. The first is with Geordie, me and our tour guide Rudy at the Taj Mahal. It was sent by one of our group in England and I couldn't resist including it, but then when the camera was already connected I thought I should include the second one which shows the Taj much more clearly. In both pictures we are seated on what has been labelled Lady Diana's Bench since it was here that she sat for her portrait when she visited the Taj some years ago. As you can imagine it is now a very popular place to be photographed by everyone.

So there you are, friends, our Happy New Year 2008 greeting to all of you. We wish you the best in this new year that is before us. Happy trails, happy days. We hope the New Year brings you all joy and peace. Our thoughts are with all of you while we travel in far flung climes. Thank you all for your greetings and wishes now and in the past year. We are so happy to have friends like you in our world.

Bonjour de Pondicherry

2007-12-27T20:28:00.000-08:00

We arrived at this French conclave yesterday after a lovely morning drive along roads green with new rice shoots filling the rice paddies. The traffic was very low compared to other trips we have taken and we made it the 98 km in only an hour and a half - that's an average speed of 60 km an hour which is a record I'm sure. The edge of town and through the centre is just like any Indian town, people, traffic, animals, shops, crazy-town, but once we hit the Beach Road, everything had changed.

Here where we are now the streets are wide, the buildings old French colonial style and in their way quite lovely, if moldering quietly in the heat. There are also very few people around the neighbourhood during the day - we have to head across town to find the hordes. Last evening though when we went for a walk on the seawall we were surprised to see how many people had made their way down to the area to walk - just like the passegiata in Spain or Portugal. Or should that be Le Passee in Nice?

French is on many of the signs, the area was only ceded back to India in the late 50's I think, (that's the 1950's) and is now called the Union Territory of Pondicherry. And the restaurants show the French influence with croissants, French bread, dark bitter coffee, and cane furniture (well, maybe that's French-Indian). That's good for us - I do like chocolate croissants and a good cup of coffee.

We are booked for a week here - it's going to be a challenge - since our "hotel" is actually a guest house with four apartments, no common area and no resident staff. The people who run the place are across the street in an antique furniture shop. The four aparments are all rented out, but we've only seen one other couple who are staying here and that's because they walked into our place yesterday afternoon, lookking to book a room. At that point we weren't even sure how things worked so we could only point them off to the shop across the street.

We had dinner at a Pizza place with a wood burning oven - they made a valiant effort and in fact the pizza was close to the real Italian style, except that the cheese was not quite mozzarella and the flavour of Italian herbs was missing too. But the crust was thin and the topping was tomatoes and mushrooms. Breakfast this morning was at a place recommended in Lonely Planet that didn't quite live up to its potential. The food was fine but the odd woman trailing red scarves and bumming smokes from one of the customers was a little off-putting - she walked by at least five times, once carrying her toothbrush, once her comb - which she did not seem to have put to good use and then plonked herself at a table to finish the cigarette she'd cadged. The good news is that we did get a generous amount of toasted baguette with our omelet which is what I was hoping for.

On another tack totally unrelated, we got a message from one of our fellow travellers this morning, Joanna from Australia, to let us and the whole group know that her illness, which started while she was on our trip was in fact Dengue Fever. We are fine, honest and if we had contracted dengue we would have known it by now. It runs its course in about two to three weeks, and since we have been just fine it's obvious we have not contracted it too.

Mind you, right on the beach there is a big humonguous insect-like thing that is displaying information about another disease which is obviously of concern. It is Filiariasis and the display is promoting the drugs which one can take to combat it. I am thinking we need to go in and see if we are at risk and to see if they are passing out the three pills required to keep the disease at bay. We do have insect repellent and there are good fans in our place, as well as an insect repellent electrical thing that puts repellent into the air - but, there was a mosquito or two, let's hope they didn't land on us last night.

Oh, one final note which is a correction. I got updated by friend Terry in Calgary that the planet I saw on Christmas Eve was Mars not Jupiter. I suppose for posterity I have to go in and correct the information in my post, so I will, later. In the meantime, I can explain that what I remember from the newspaper was that the planets Jupiter and Mars were aligned with Earth, or the moon, so I got the wrong planet up there in the sky. I didn't want to leave everyone with the wrong info. And has justice would have it, Terry learned the correct information from The Times of India when he googled for the facts.

Nuff for now. Hugs to all as we count down to New Year's.

Merry Christmas India

2007-12-24T22:59:00.000-08:00

Last night was Christmas Eve and we ate at a restaurant on the beach. The moon was full and Jupiter was hanging high above it - I know that because it was described in the paper yesterday. The meal was nothing like a Christmas meal at home - Geordie ordered grilled red snapper and I had Tandoori prawns, two big ones that cost twice as much as Geordie's whole fish. With that we were served a large plate of vegetable fried rice and a large plate of "finger chips" (French fries to the uninitiated), as well as two of the huge beers on offer here. The breeze of the Andaman Sea (or the Bay of Bengal as it says in some guide book or other) was fresh - fresh enough to cool the rice and french fries quickly. The fish was delicious but the prawns were over-flavoured with the tandoori paste and spicy hot, so the sweet taste that might have been was overwhelmed. No matter. We enjoyed our evening on the beach.

Today we are going to go for a walk on the beach again. We'll wander along enjoying the sight of the waves and the bawling of the cows who are hanging out there too. It sounds like the right thing to do here in Mamallapuram. We discovered a couple of days ago that once one gets past the edge of town along the beach, going north, the beach gets much cleaner. There's also a very fancy hotel up there which is probably far beyond our budget. But maybe we'll drop in for a coffee, or a cool drink on our walk. This morning we had coffee at the nice place we discovered earlier this week - I thought you might appreciate its name - "The Freshly and Hot Cafe".

Mamallapuram has put on the dog for Christmas mind you. Our little resort has a tree out front decorated with little presents wrapped in shiny foil paper - I noticed that one of the children of the resort had unwrapped one this morning - I'm afraid she was quite disappointed. Last night outside the Seashore Restaurant where we ate our Christmas Eve dinner there was a large tree in the sand with lights draping it as well as red tinsel garland. And on top a large three dimensional star - there are lots of these around town decorating many of the shops and restaurants.

On the streets themselves there are lovely chalk decorations; some of these are made by rolling a tube of chalk across the pavement or sidewalk leaving an intricate design; the tubes are for sale. Others appear to be labours of love, drawn in coloured chalk in entrance ways and on the sidewalks in front of people's businesses. These beautiful designs lend an exotic air that makes them for us the Indian spirit of Christmas.

One sad note that should not be forgotten - I wished the manager of our hotel a Merry Christmas this morning and he replied that the pleasure of Christmas was destroyed for him by the tsunami of 2004. He was not morose about it, but obviously for the people who live here, it is a painful memory that is brought back every year by the tourists celebrating Christmas while the locals live with their pain.

It's obvious that Mamallapuram has bounced back from the disaster and it is certainly now thriving again as a tourist haunt; we hear many voices from foreign climes, many of them European, German, Norse or Swedish, French, but few English voices, and there may be other Canadians here but if so they don't stick out. We have heard few people with the accents of home, and the locals who ask where we are from guess more that we are Australian or English than that we are from North America.

We are planning our onward trip now. Geordie has been on the Internet several times, attempting to make reservations for trains beyond Pondicherry which we head to on the 27th of December. He managed to reserve an overnight train to the tip of India from Trichy which is inland, but wasn't able to get us from Pondicherry to Trichy by train, so it looks like we may finally have to figure out how the buses work. I don't think a car from Pondicherry to Trichy is reasonable so we will have to work it out. Two of our fellow travellers on our Rajahstan tour wrote that they had taken buses on the second leg of their tour and that it wasn't so bad, so we are going to do our research and make our way to Trichy by hook or by crook since we do need to make that train.

It's beaching time for us now. We've enjoyed our week here in Mamallapuram, with sea breezes to cool our food, the pleasure of not being hassled continuously as we walk the streets, the relative calm of the streets, the amazing rock carvings which are within a stone's throw of town. After inland Trichy which will be hot and steamy we imagine, we will be keeping to the coast as much as possible. Unlike Rajahstan there's no need for a scarf here to keep the ears warm so those sea breezes will be essential.

So it's Merry Christmas to all. We have enjoyed the Christmas wishes we have recieved from folks and wish you all the pleasure of the season, whether you are at home with family, on the beach in Mexico or Hawaii or anywhere else in the world you have chosen for this holiday time. Now is the countdown to 2008 - get yourselves ready for a Happy New Year. Love and peace from Geordie and Nigel.

Mamallapuram - Stoned at the Beach

2007-12-21T00:39:00.000-08:00

We seem to be travelling just ahead of trouble as I've already said. And so it continues. Because of the potential for traffic disruptions from the Maoists in Kolkata and because our guide book said it took two hours to get to the Kolkata Airport (affectionately? known as DumDum because it's where the British developed the DumDum bullet), we left our hotel by taxi at 10:00 am three days ago.

The trip took all of 45 minutes (the people from the guide book must have been travelling by human powered rickshaw, of which there are lots in Kolkata) so there we were, over 8 hours ahead of boarding time of our plane - in an airport that didn't look that friendly to waiting passengers, noisy, not many places to sit down, and very few places to get any sustenance.

Geordie sent me off to find out what might be done, and I finally talked to the check-in counter for our airline, Deccan Air, who, after consultation told me I might be able to get into the fancy first class lounge. I was guided there and found out to my joy that because I have a Gold MasterCard, I qualified to hang out with the hoi polloi. What a pleasure it was - I wasn't there too long when I began to feel like a rich person, annoyed when someone left the door of the lounge open to let in the gabble of noise outside. (How snooty!)

Really though it was a little bit of heaven for our 8 hour wait. I must remember this again when I am at foreign airports, and maybe I should check my credit card plans more closely. We got lovely cappuchino's, free food (pizza would you believe and ginger cookies), comfortable seating, peace and quiet, all because of a little plastic. Just to pass the time we actually dared go out into the airport a few times just to mingle.

Our flight left exactly on time to Chennai and we passed from the turbulent north of India to the more relaxed south. Like Kolkata, we have really not been hassled over much at all, there are few beggars, we have found a place that does a wonderful expresso right across the street from our "resort", and we are quite happy being here over Christmas.

Arriving was a bit of an adventure though. Our flight got in at 9:40 pm and we were met outside the airport by our driver whom we requested to get us to the Resort here in Mamallapuram. We are so thankful for that. It felt so much more comfortable to know that our driver knew where he was going and we could leave the worry to him.

But it was raining and there was construction on the road we took to get out of Chennai - it took a half hour just to get away from the incredible traffic tie up - here it was, 10:00 pm and from the airport we had a half four of four-lane, bumper to bumper traffic. Incredible. And it was another hour in pouring rain to Mammalla.. When we arrived the rain was coming down even harder and we were shown to our room by flashlight since there was no power. The kind guys who led us there did light a candle for us, and got us a bunch of the sweetest small bananas and two bottles of water to slake our hunger and thirst.

The beds were a little clammy too, but we managed to fall asleep, to be awakened about 3 am by the most incredibly noisy thunder and brilliant lightning. If it's true that you count seconds between lightning and thunder to find out how many miles away the storm is, we were in the midst of it, because they were nearly simultaneous. It didn't last too long though, and we did get back to sleep, even if we were awakened again when the power came on with all the lights that had been left with the switches in the on position.

This morning we discovered from the paper that this unseasonable weather (monsoon weather) has caused much grief in the state of Tamil Nadhu. Thousands of hectares of ready-to-be-harvested crops are underwater, hundreds of homes have flooded and many people in the state are without a place to live - a little Hurricane Katrina-like since they have been placed in schools and gymnasiums to wait out the relief efforts. We are fine, there is little concern here although we did pass by a house today in an alley that had indeed been flooded, as we were making our way to the ruins of Mamma... We had to backtrack at one point because we couldn't wade the street of water without getting our feet soaked. It must be very difficult for the people of the state although it does sound like relief efforts are taking place. By the way, this area was also damaged by the 2004 tsunami with much loss of life, so I'm sure they don't need more trouble.

The reason for our trek through the partially flooded streets under the midday sun, was to see the ruins of some fine sculpted temples here in Mamma... This is a world heritage site and with good reason. Check out the pictures on this website to get a good idea of what we have seen or will see tomorrow when we go off again.

The first site is called the Shore Temples and I would have great pictures if my batteries had not decided to die after I took two photos. And it was a one time visit only ticket of course which cost 250 rupees for foreigners like us. You can content yourselves with knowing that someone has already done the work of recording the sites in the website I mentioned and I don't have to spend ages uploading photos for you. (I must do this more often, really - I know you don't get to see pictures of the two of us that way, but you at least get the flavour of the place.) I did buy new batteries to continue on to the second site included in our day ticket, so I do have good photos of that area.

The giant elephant was my favourite carving. From what we can gather, these monuments were carved from the living rock, so have not been moved here (which would have been a monumental task in itself.) So that fine elephant used to be just a boulder and the huge temples were other even bigger boulders. These carvings were carved sometime in the 600 to 700 AD period I think, so the work must have been a long time in the making.

The whole area is still alive with stone carvers although now they are more aimed at the tourist trade. There are still some big carvings done of course, including a wondeful hippopotamus we saw at one shop that must weigh half a ton - we decided it would not fit in the back pack to be brought back to delight our hippo loving friend Midge in Kamloops - she'll have to be content with the photo when its downloaded to send to her.

We are staying in Mamma.. for a week - we will explore more of the carved ruins tomorrow and maybe I'll be able to post a picture or two later. Again, these old fashioned computers have the USB ports at the back. I may do a little searching to see if I can find another place where they are more up to date. The speed is fine though so I'm not complaining.

What we won't be doing much of it I think, is walking along the beach or swimming in the Indian sea. The waves are quite rough for one thing and the beach leaves a lot to be desired in the cleanliness category. What a wonderful world it would be if someone had not invented the plastic bag or any other disposable plastic object. The beach is littered with the stuff and we imagine it comes from garbage being tossed or even deliberately disposed of into the sea. It makes one feel the need to begin ta campaign to eliminate the plastic bag. I think we should do our part here and refuse any bag we are offered. It's easy enough and I've certainly done it, but here it is brought home with such force, that it becomes essential to be part of the solution.

Nuff for now, I'm climbing down off my podium and finishing off this message. Christmas is a-coming, and no doubt many of you will be enjoying your Christmas turkey soon. We'll miss it, which is always one of the saddest things for me about our being away at this time of year - so we must remember to have a nice Christmas feast when we get back in March. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, turnip, gravy, Christmas pud with my mother's recipe, oh my, I'm missing it.

Frosty the Snowman (in Kolkata?)

2007-12-18T00:44:00.000-08:00

It's hard to think about snow when we are in Kolkata, although lots of the men around here wrap scarves around their heads and necks to keep warm in the cool temperatures of the area. What, about 20 degrees Celsius at the coolest? They obviously find it cold. I even saw a pair of wool gloves today at a department store we wandered around in.

However, we have been reminded of snow and Christmas today with a message from our daughter Holli and Grandson Devan. First we have a picture drawn by Devan showing the three of us, (Gramps Facey, Poppy Pottle and Devan) at the Taj Mahal. It's a work of art and it's nice to know we are thought of.

Art by Devan

And then there is snow. Seems it did a little of that in Vancouver early in the month and Devan got to do a little playing around. Think of this as our Christmas card. The last photo is of some mini snowmen with carrot noses that Devan made. Wow, an artist and a sculptor!

Please note the hat Devan is wearing. It's the skull hat I made for his birthday and I'm glad to see it's come in useful in snow. (It's a skull hat because Devan's birthday celebration had a pirate theme.)

Meanwhile in Kolkata:

Kolkata or Calcutta as we have known it has obviously gotten a bad rap. I'd been dreading it for some time because of that and the fact that we have had less than wonderful experiences in the other cities we have visited. The beggars, the touts, the crowds, the cow dung, nothing is like home! However the area we are in Kolkata is definitely not like the horrifying images we saw in the film City of Joy. Instead it has been one of the most hassle free places we've been so far.

We are staying in the Sudder Street area which is a bit of backpacker central, and as you know, we moved hotels after our first day here. But even on Sudder
Street the hassle's are few and I have yet to see a cow anywhere. It's funny though to see the goats and sheep being herded across busy intersections where the humans take their lives in their hands - that's one big problem - the pedestrian is definitely low on the totem pole here. Unlike places like Bangkok or Rome, the drivers make no effort to give way to pedestrians. In those other places you can do a dance with the drivers and get across the street by making eye contact and moving from lane to lane watching around you. Here the drivers just honk their horns to get you out of the way. They have all the right of way there is.

But otherwise, this is almost a sane city, with busy people on their way to work, or working on the streets. There's very little begging - a few women with children asking for money for "milk for babee". I had two rupee coins in my pocket which I gave to one of them, but she didn't think it was enough and kept begging. However, if we gave money to every begger who asked we'd be penniless soon enough. The other annoyance is the touting at the New Market. It's a big market and looks very interesting - an architectural point of interest, but the touts won't leave you alone outside the building. As new blood they latch on to keep telling us that there are craft shops inside. If we went in, they would get a commission so they are really aggressive and don't take lightly to "NO", so we have yet to venture inside because it's so annoying.

We went off to the Victoria Memorial today. Seems we weren't the only ones with that idea. We walked which took at least 45 minutes (we went the long way around the building to find the entrance) and when we got to the front door we were faced with a huge line up - all local, all looking less than prosperous. Their entry fee was 4 rupees, we got to pay 150 rupees each! We waited diligently in line while it snaked to the front door (there have to have been a thousand people ahead of us) until we were almost at the steps when one of the guards told us we could jump the line - 150 rupees has its privileges it seems.

Inside was a zoo of course - everyone stayed in line, snaking around looking at the exhibits, but at speed, so it was difficult to stay and admire. We did our best. The Memorial was started in 1906 to celebrate the reign of Queen Victoria. As a very appropriate aside, we read today in the paper, that as of tomorrow, Queen Elizabeth the Second surpasses Victoria and becomes the oldest reigning British Monarch! Not bad, Betty!

We are hazarding a guess that most of the people at the monument are in Kolkata because of the big demonstration planned for tomorrow by a group of Maoists who want a separate state for Assam. We ran into some of them yesterday when we were navigating the Maidan, the huge green space along the river and train tracks. They are marching under their hammer and sickle flags. It seems incongruous for them to hang out at the Vicky Memorial. Another big story in the paper today talked about a group of the Maoists who occupied a train heading to Kolkata, displacing all of the 500 fare-paying passengers who had booked the train. These folks mean business.

Tomorrow we are heading to the airport to fly to Chennai and on to Mamallapuram where we are going to spend our Christmas hols! We may go early since the paper said that the area near us would be jammed with the demonstrators by noon and would cause havoc in the traffic patterns. Our flight is not till 7:30 pm, but we are advised to leave for the airport two hours ahead of when we want to be there if we do it during the day. It only takes an hour at night!

I'm sure we'll make it as usual. We are keeping ahead of the troubles quite well so far. Until the beach...

Oh Kolkata!

2007-12-16T04:15:00.000-08:00

We made it. No bombs, no accidents, no unusual events or unexpected things happened on our trip from Bodhgaya to Kolkata. We left the hotel by a great funky, private car to drive to Gaya - our least favorite town in the world this week. Why does driving at 60 km an hour feel like hurtling? My leg was so tired from braking as we did the trip and Geordie says his eyes were closed most of the time. Of course compared to the speed of a bicycle we were hurtling and the trucks are limited to 40 km an hour - honest!

In Gaya we had 12 hours before our train, so we got a hotel room - a different hotel this time. It was called the Hotel Akash and was little different from the other one we took except a little further away from the Hindu temple (which didn't make any noise anyway). The generators were going full tilt of course - turns out that the state of Bihar is one of the poorest in the country and the electricity grid is very poor. The town of Gaya is actually suffering because they get electricity only about four hours a day and two of those are in the middle of the night. Factories are closing down, throwing people out of work because they cannot run their generators enough to support the required power needs.

Bihar is a Dalit state - Dalits are the untouchables and they are definitely the lowest on the totem pole. As well as being poor, they are also the lowest caste of course, and they get very little support from central government - hence the major problems.

Gaya was redeemed by one thing though - we found a hotel with a really good restaurant - the rooms were too expensive for Geordie but the food was cheap. They even had half orders of everything so we didn't waste it. Everything was delicious and the maitre d' (yes, there was sort of one, he was the manager) was very proud of the food he was serving. He gave us very personal attention since we were the only guests. I worried for a bit that our little bill was going to be all they made that evening, but another group came in later, so I felt better.

We left for the train station at 4 in the morning (train scheduled for 4:30), and had to wake the guys at the front desk to unlock the gate for us. They did it graciously and waved goodbye. The train station was full of people - it felt like a homeless shelter, there were so many people wrapped in blankets lying on the floor asleep. We felt a little nervous on the platform while we waited for the train, since we were being eyed by several guys who did not look too trustworthy. We had had experience with a gang of guys who were attempting to steal things while we were on our tour, so we know to keep a close eye and hand on everything. Two of the guys who had been eyeing us got onto a stopped train, and got off again two minutes later, and took off across the tracks in the darkness. We couldn't tell if they had more after they got off than when they got on.

The train was only an hour late - not bad, since we met a guy who told us his train was scheduled for 11:30 pm and had not yet arrived at 5:00 am. We got on and snuggled down pretty quickly although I only got about two hours sleep, Geordie less. The trip was over six hours and included breakfast and a free newspaper, so that was a bonus. In the news was an article about India testing a surface to air missile - it was named the Akash - same as our hotel the night before!

As I said, we had no troubles but during the morning we did go through one station which was all aflutter with Maoist or communist banners and flags. Maybe they were in the neighbourhood of the problems. The train did not stop at the station, either deliberately or inadvertently. We arrived an hour late too, and had to work our way through a mob of taxi touts to get to the prepaid taxi service which was no doubt cheaper than we would have been able to negotiate on our own. The taxi got us through town to the backpacker area pretty efficiently - I have a feeling that's because it's Sunday today.

We went to a hotel recommended in Lonely Planet as a mid-range hotel, which sounded good. I sent Geordie off to check out a room, and after he went back the second time to see if it had a bathroom, we took it. He was tired and wanted to go to the bathroom which explains why he took the place which was just a little over the level of our Gaya hotels. No matter. We did a walk around in the afternoon, and found another hotel which is a lot better (and three times as much money of course) but it will be worth it, not to have to look at the dirty walls and we won't have to avoid taking a shower. The hotel even has a lift - now that's class.

We move tomorrow, although for a minute it sounded like a good idea to just add the price of today's room to the bill and just get out right away, but our economic side took over. Can't waste good money. That done we went off exploring and found the first cup of coffee that was not made from a jar since we arrived in the country. All those flash hotels we have been staying in on the tour offer instant coffee with lots of hot milk (the redeeming feature), so getting a caffe americano was a real treat even if it was strong enough to put hair on our chests. Then we even found a nice bookstore, called the Oxford of all things, and had a good look around - I'll probably go back tomorrow and have a good long look and maybe even buy something - had to leave because the bathroom was calling.

So here we are, three nights in Kolkata and then we head for the beach in South India. As we said, we are skipping Chennai - flying there and taking a taxi directly to the beach town which is called Mamallapuram - if you want to search it in your atlas. It's actually got ruins, so if you do a google search you will find very interesting pictures of the things in the area. We are going to spend 8 days there, and will be celebrating Christmas there too. (I wonder what that will be like in Hindu India? This is not the Christian area after all.)

Now to look for a nice place for dinner. Geordie says he's hungry and there's a really nice looking place called the Zurich in the area which is rated highly for backpackers in the Lonely Planet Bible. (It did look very nice - clean even!, although it doesn't have any Swiss food - Indian, Continental, Thai, and Chinese. Maybe a little Italian. And definitely Banana Pancakes!!