This Country is one, cheap date! Aug 12, 2005

August 12, 2005

So I thought I would start off with throwing some figures around...

-Bus Ride (US) 5 cents
-Hotel room $ 3.75
-Dinner with beverage and dessert $ 1.80
-Coke 40 cents (probably overcharged)

-9 hour train ride first class observation car $ 5.70 (3rd class would have been only $ 1.80, I decided to loosen my usually tight purse strings and splurge a little).

-And for the grand finale!!!! Avocados the size of my fist! for 5 to 6 cents each! I'm considering importing them~! If U.S. Customs wouldn't have a cow, I'd fill my back pack with them and have guacamole for a year! (of course I'd share;)

-Oh and I apologize to my two favorite hair-cutters. Joe and Stephanie...you've been replaced. I'm bringing home my barber-boy who does a great fade-cut for 60 cents and will throw in a full scalp massage plus facial for 20 cents more! (The eyeball massage was a bit much, but we'll work on that...)


I haven't said much about the people...they're WONDERFUL! (once you leave Colombo of course...;)

My friend Stan insists you do not need to share the same language to carry on a conversation. I had an experience that very much confirmed his assertion. I met a Sri Lankan man on the way to the hills who starting pantomiming that he liked to swim, surf, dance, and that he was a brown belt in karate...it took me about 5 minutes into the "conversation" to realize he probably wasn't talking with any of the Sinhalese because he was a deaf mute. Long story short, he's a wonderful man who wants to be a tour guide for deaf people around the world coming to Sri Lanka (he already had quite the resume of hearing customers!) So if you know anyone, pass on the info...I'll vouch for him.

Salman Deaf (no, not a joke)
No.226
Nawala Pitiya Rd.
Ulapane
Sri Lanka
(FYI- this contact information is now 8 years old...)

I had a wonderful time in the "hill country" (the "hills" looked like mountains to me, maybe they reserve that title for the Himalayas?). One of my most favorite creatures in the world lives here in abundance. Picture the cutest fox you ever saw, but it eats only fruit, then put 3 feet of bat wings on them and you have the Flying Fox, (a fruit bat, really). Their dark shadows fill the sky, blotting out sections of stars...they'd be hella scary if they weren't so gosh darn adorable!

I also saw "Lipton's Seat." A truly unreasonable 3 mile climb up then back down the side of a mountain to look out over Sir Thomas Lipton's Tea Estate, (yes, this is where that hideous abomination of British bagged dirty leaf juice originally came from). It made me sooo miss my friend Scott. He and I , well ... we are Tea-Heads (sorry I'm breaking your anonymity). I'm more of a daily user or "Maintenance" tea drinker while Scott is a full on binger! After a day of drinking the "King's Brew," he'll wake up not knowing where he is or who he slept with...come to think of it, maybe he's just a senile slut...(love you, Scott!)

On a serious note, the next time you drink a cup of tea (and I'm sure coffee is no different), join me in thanking the countless people that make it happen. Men and women had to blast through mountains and break stone by hand to lay train tracks to carry the tea that is picked by young and old women, who carry the tea bags on their heads, hour after hour, day after day, for about US $30 a month. It has to be picked by hand because only the top budding new growth is acceptable for brewing. It's not a clear cut human rights /labor abuse issue. Yes, the Tamil people live on the plantations (sound familiar?) But they are free to come and go and marry... School is provided for the children...but I think most of them grow up to work on the plantations...And if you don't drink tea or coffee you're not off the hook, because 40% of the Sri Lankan economy is textiles of which 60% fuels the U.S. textile market...Nike, Adidas...name an outdoors or athletic company and they run sweat shops here. The Sri Lankans don't mind the basic work, just as long as they are given the opportunity to form Labor Unions and have decent working hours, conditions, and pay...anyways enough of that...

Back to the day trip...What made that hike so ridiculous is I had already done a 3 1/2 mile hike through Horton's Plains to "World's End". This place is completely out of character for Sri Lanka, for those that know San Francisco, picture Mount Tam on a cold foggy drizzly day! I'm running around in a t-shirt and flip-flops like I'm back home and the poor locals are wearing WINTER coats, hats and all! Once you have walked through winding trails past waterfalls and unending grass that grows like pom-poms,you're rewarded with a view over an 800 meter sheer cliff! Gorgeous folks...

I've just arrived back into Colombo from the "Hill Country."Tomorrow starts the VEL festival (I think...ask 3 different people, get 3 different answers?!) So if it happens and if I find it I'll tell you all about this wild, Tamil Hindu festival where they pull chariots through the street chanting and piercing their bodies...stay tuned ;)

much love
Paul

Train to Luxor

Luxor

January 6, 2012

Cairo Train Station

The overnight sleeper train to Luxor wasn’t exactly the Orient Express, but I have done much worse. I shared a car with a sociologist liberal New Hampshire boy who attended a Southern Baptist College who then joined the military to escape his horrendous student debt. This could be a cautionary tale except he loves the military. They taught him to fly helicopters and he is now serving in the long standing U.N. “peace keeping” mission on the Sinai. No heroics or nationalistic hubris, he just enjoys the adventure and the prospect of a secure future career as a civilian pilot. Army boy told me of a scene he witnessed as he was boarding our train.

Sizing up the train cabin before my guest arrives.

A man broke a carriage window and against the boarded passengers’ best defense to repel the man, he was able to crowd surf through the window. OH I wish I had seen that! But I am grateful that I didn’t have to put up with that bedlam in second class.

I have to admit I was enchanted by this army guy. And no, it wasn’t his flawless good lucks, but rather his disposition. I felt like I had entered a movie set from the 1940’s. With a warmth and humor, this guy was the character that always sees the good side of situations and people and chooses his words effortlessly from a place of kindness. He loves being active, playing music, and charity work. In other words, in my reality, he was completely exotic. This encountered reminded me that I am surrounded by and often the emitter of neurosis.

Luxor

Luxor would be just another sleepy town sitting on the Nile if it wasn’t for the endless flow of international package tour boats and buses. Even during this unstable political time in Egypt, which is keeping away the vast majority of tourists, there are still more tourists than I care to share my space with. It must be like the swarms of locus during a regular season. If you can get away from the river’s edge, the tout-hassle declines tremendously and the city is kind of cute. I gorged myself daily on fresh breads and pastries from a shop that was little more than iron racks of baked treats piled on the sidewalk in front of an industrial oven.

Room mural with mood lighting, such a love nest.

Room even came with a balcony! 

Hotel's rooftop patio 

View of the Nile and the West Bank

My room in Luxor had the luxury of cable TV. Clear your mind of whatever image that might have conjured. This is a shoebox sized room. The TV gets 3 English channels and the screen is the size of my laptop. Back to the point…I was watching an English program and a commercial comes on. A handsome man walks down a street in any-town, Islamic world. He’s blindfolded and following a mysterious man dressed in black with all but his eyes shrouded. Mystery man leads the blindfolded man to the top of a staircase. Blindfolded man then steps out and tumbles and twists, with sounds of his body thumping of the stone and bones breaking. The closing shot is of blindfolded man laying dead at the bottom of the staircase bleeding and with his limbs dislocated. There is no dialog (and the visuals don’t need any), but the closing text is in Arabic except for the url: www.saynototerror.me. This bit of anti-terror was played repeatedly while I watched my American movie? Who’s the intended audience? The most obvious answer would seem to be Egyptians. But when I surfed the regular Egyptian channels I never saw the commercial; it appeared to only be incessantly broadcasted on the all-English content cable movie channel, which I’m sure some Egyptians do watch, but so do all the foreigners.

Tomorrow I go to the Valley of the Kings!