marjorieandpaul's TravelStream™ — Recent TravelPod.com entries TravelStream™ news feed for member marjorieandpaul on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/marjorieandpaul en-us Copyright ©2012 TravelPod.com Tue, 25 Jan 2011 09:32:58 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com Cambodia 2011 — Phnom Penh, Cambodia http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marjorieandpaul/asia/1295989569/tpod.html http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marjorieandpaul/asia/1295989569/tpod.html#comment Travel Blogs http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marjorieandpaul/asia/1295989569/tpod.html Tue, 25 Jan 2011 14:32:58 +0000 ASIA and AFRICA: From Turkey to India, plus sub-Saharan Africa
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

THE QUEEN'S VISIT TO CAMBODIA

Siem Reap, Cambodia
January 2011

Editor’s Note: This is an account of Queen I-Wanna-Wine-A’s (or sometimes known as Queen I-Wanna-Whine-A’s)recent visit to the Kingdom of Cambodia. I, her humble and faithful, man-servant accompanied her Royal Highness and write this account knowing full well that I could be given twenty lashes for disseminating the information contained here, as I am not authorized to be speaking to the press or the public. References in the story to "you" or boy”, will usually refer to man-servant (me).

Cambodia!? Ah, where to begin? Do we start with its ancient Hindu and Buddhist cultural heritage manifested so magnificently in the incredible temples at Angkor Wat? Or with its colonial period under first the French and then it’s struggles during the American War in Southeast Asia in the sixties and seventies? And then there is the dark period of the Khmer Rouge from 1975-1979 when the cities were completely denuded of people, the national bank was blown up, money was eliminated and two-million of the country’s eight-million subjects were tortured, executed and / or other wise eliminated or disappeared?

The Royal journey began with a taxi ride (no motorcycle taxi, bicycle taxi, or tuk-tuk ride in the open air for the Queen) to our luxurious accommodations in downtown Phnom Penh (yes, both P’s are pronounced). The Queen was happy here until she had to venture out into the streets where her many loyal and friendly subjects were anxiously swarming around her like dogs around a fire-hydrant, offering greetings such as “Taxi Madame? Tuk-tuk Madame? Where do you come from? Where are you going today? Where are you going tomorrow? Maybe you give me one-dollar for bananas? Do you need guide today? You want postcards? Ten postcards for one-dollar. Good price for you.”

You can see that the Queen was loved by all. A driver named Kim Dim (male – and NOT dim) was engaged to show us around the capitol. Our first stop, of course, was the Royal Palace, which was a special treat for the Queen as she felt most at home inside the manicured grounds and opulent buildings and art, and away from the unwashed masses milling about out in the streets. We then ventured out to Tuol Sleng, or S21, the infamous interrogation center used during the brutal reign of the fringe communists known as the Khmer Rouge where they tortured anyone who did not appear to be a peasant and then shipped them outside the city to Cheung Ek, or the Killing Fields, where they were summarily bludgeoned to death and buried in mass graves.

Our driver Kim was thirty-three years old, meaning that he was born in 1977 during the reign of terror in his country. It didn’t take him long to begin telling us about his family. He had two sisters and three brothers, all older than he. One sister had died during the terror as, “my mother told me many years later that my sister became very sick and they could not have medicines, so she died.”

His mother also told him, when he was old enough to understand, that shortly after he was born the family was being transported in a rickety old bus to a new location in the countryside where they would be used as slave labor. At one point the bus stopped and soldiers came on and said that a farmer needed some help with a broken cart in the nearby field and told all the men to come and help. Shortly, shots could be heard…many shots. Kim’s mother told him later that she immediately knew what had happened and that she would never see her husband again. Soon, the soldiers returned and instructed the driver to continue on. Kim’s mother is still alive as are the rest of his brothers and sisters who survived the terror.

Thursday Night Quiz Question; What was the largest city in the history of the world prior to the Industrial Revolution?

a) Alexandria, Egypt
b) Athens, Greece
c) Angkor Wat, Cambodia
d) Rome, Italy

Answer “C”, Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat flourished as a mainly Hindu, and for a shorter period a Buddhist civilization from the ninth through the twelfth centuries and was a fitting next stop on the Royal Journey through Cambodia.

Siem Reap (meaning Siamese Defeat, to commemorate a long past battle, and a name that does not endear the Cambodians to their neighbors in Thailand) was once a small town located near both the overgrown jungle temples of Angkor Wat and the largest fresh water lake in Asia, Tonle. Today, with Angkor Wat having been listed as a UN World Heritage site and being on the “must see” lists of anyone going to Asia, it now more resembles Key West, or even Cancun or Playa del Carmen…without the beach.

At night, Pub Street, shut off to motorized traffic, is clogged with tourists from all over the world, jamming its Italian, Mexican, Thai, Cambodian, and French restaurants. Giant screen TV’s show English Premier League soccer games. Tour buses drop off groups of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, and Western tourists on one side of Pub Street and pick them up on the opposite side. It looks like you’re at Disney World, and not in the middle of a very poor third-world country.

Of course, what self respecting tourist spot in Asia would be complete without a full array of massage services. MORE ON THIS NEXT WEEK!!!


THE QUEEN’S VISIT TO CAMBODIA (Part 1 of 2)

Massage and Amusement Rides

A Royal stop, after a delightful Mexican fiesta dinner, at a massage parlor called Master Feet (or sometimes Dr. Feet) was a must for the Queen and she was not disappointed. The following is from the little advertising flyer at Happy Feet Massage Parlor. My comments in parenthesis.

Let us take care your health after temple tours

Detoxification of organs (as if visiting the temples is bad for your organs)

Release Tension (as if visiting the temples causes tension)

Relieving illness and pain (as if a visit to the temples causes illness and pain)

Foot reflexology (press foot bottoms in your feet by wood stick with baby oil & vitamin E. Differs from foot massage which no reflexion.

Be aware! Immitation foot reflexology which no wood stick! No press foot bottom ! no reflexion !

Well, after that enticing description, how can one resist? Just $6.00US for one hour! After a hot and dusty day out clambering over the ancient stones of Angkor Wat, what could be better than having a cute little Cambodian girl poke at your feet for an hour with a wooden stick?

Which brings us to currency issues. There are none for American visitors as the US$ dollar is the actual currency used throughout Cambodia…along with their own Rial. It’s a joint program. Almost all prices are quoted in US$. ATM’s dispense US dollars and not Rials as there are four-thousand of the latter to one of the former. Change for purchases that fall between a one-dollar increment is given in Rial. Fish and vegetables in local markets are paid for in Rial, but what Queen would be shopping in the local markets…which by the way, are some of the most interesting sites in the country.

And speaking of sites, the Queen did visit the ancient monuments at Angkor Wat. At the helm of the Royal Limousine was our trusty driver Lai (pronounced Lie). He generally showed up in his cut off jeans and T-shirts with hair all moosed and spiked up (looking like he had spent all night in the pubs) to tote us around in his lovely Toyota Camry complete with live video built into the dash. I must be getting old. I had to go to Cambodia to see this.

We also employed an energetic and very funny guide named Kea. He greeted us on our first morning with, “Good morning lady and gentleman. Welcome to your tour of Angkor Wat and all ancient monuments. Unfortunately, I don’t know much about the monuments and history, but I like to talk and tell stories. (Ha, ha, ha)”

Our first reaction was that he and Lai had stopped a legitimate guide on the street, mugged him, and stole his uniform (you see, unlicensed guides - identified by their uniforms - are not allowed inside the temples for free).

Hold on just a minute. What were we getting into? Well, Kea gave us more history and stories than we could have reasonably expected if we’d had three guides all talking at the same time. We would have bought anything he said so no problem with his knowledge of history. It all sounded good to us. He and the Queen hit it off right away (shortly after his introductory statement) and while he lectured us on the history of Angkor Wat, the Queen lectured and helped Kea with his English. It was a true symbiotic relationship.

In the meantime, Lai would sleep in the car as we tromped over the ruins, perhaps explaining how he could work(?) all day and party all night. He also gave us some insight into driving in Cambodia.

Traffic flow and regulations are a new concept in a poor country like Cambodia that had no cars, let alone people, in their cities just thirty-five years ago. I can’t recollect seeing one traffic light in Siem Reap, and probably about three in all of Phnom Penh, the capitol. There were a few stop signs but those appeared to be more suggestions than actual commands. The following scenario occurred as we approached a four way intersection in downtown Phnom Penh. Note that driving is on the right like in North America and most of Europe.

Traffic approaches from all four directions and there are no stop signs to impede progress. Bicycles, motorbikes, horse drawn carts, tuk-tuks, buses, trucks and cars like RAV4’s and Lexus SUV’s all converge on one single point. We are in a tuk tuk, a covered, open air cart dragged along behind a motorcycle. We approach the intersection. Traffic is all funneling towards the middle. We need to turn left, but instead of moving out into the middle of the intersection and then turning into the perpendicular right hand lane to our left, we simply cut directly over to the left at the entry to the intersection and cut off traffic coming from our left. We then proceed down the left side of the street, directly into oncoming traffic. We slowly inch our way to the right, flowing like water down a rocky mountain stream until we finally merge over into the right hand lane and continue on to the next intersection where we face the same terror once again…until we reach our destination. It’s all good and cheap fun. Kind of like an amusement park ride.

Venturing out at night for dinner we eventually began to take tuk-tuks (note; we were moving down the chain from air conditioned car) to our chosen restaurant. Afterwards, under the cover of darkness, the Queen insisted that we walk back to the hotel so she could see what life was like, out in the streets, for the real people of Cambodia. She was starting to go local (re; loco).

This going loco – I mean local – culminated on our last afternoon when she deigned to take the open air tuk-tuk to the airport through rush-hour traffic. She laughed wildly as our trusty driver turned into on-coming traffic, cut off motorbikes at every opportunity and even asked us if we wanted to stop to take a photo of he and his tuk-tuk in front of the government assembly building (we declined that kind offer). At one point, we were cut off by another tuk-tuk and our driver began beeping his horn (which was actually quite uncommon throughout our trip) and waving his fist at its Neanderthal driver.

The Queen laughed and said, “Now that’s the pot calling the kettle black,” as traffic, dust and noise swirled wildly around us. And so it was.
]]> Nepal — Kathmandu, Nepal http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marjorieandpaul/7/1252172203/tpod.html http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marjorieandpaul/7/1252172203/tpod.html#comment Travel Blogs http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marjorieandpaul/7/1252172203/tpod.html Sat, 05 Sep 2009 17:40:13 +0000 2008-2009 Myanmar and Nepal
Kathmandu, Nepal

Kathmandu, Nepal

March 2009

In mid-March we traded the heat and smoky haze of Chiang Mai for the cool, smoky haze and power outages of Kathmandu and Nepal. Despite overpopulation, over-taxed and broken infrastructure, a lack of a cohesive governmental approach after more than ten years of civil war, and the removal of the long sitting monarchy, Nepal is still a whacky, entertaining and interesting place to visit. It's third-world in a Hindu/Buddhist sort of way. The dollar was very strong, discounts were abundant, and the people were happy to see us.

After enjoying several accelerating days of pollution and honking horns mixed in with the odd wandering sacred cow, we headed off to the little mountain town of Dhulikhel, about an hour outside of Kathmandu. One morning we ran across a "coming-of-age" ceremony at the local Hindu temple. Three teen-aged boys were going through the rights of passage to manhood by having their heads shaved, after which the families would spend the rest of the day feasting and partying. I was invited backstage to observe the ritual slaughter of a sheep for roasting and eating by a man proclaimed to be a master of his craft. He was a deaf-mute who wielded a nasty knife and who purportedly traveled more than 500 miles to do the honors.

Then it was on to Chitwan National Park, which I had read about for years, but had never visited. We were in search of the rare Himalayan tiger and one horned Asian Rhino. It was fairly clear from the outset that we would NOT be seeing the tiger but we did manage to roundup a rhino while racing around on elephant back. One of the hi-lites of our visit occurred one night when I went to close the window to our hut and a green jungle snake fell off the glass and onto the sill. Marjorie slept very well (NOT) that night.

Next was Pokhara where I took my first sunrise micro-light flight while Marjorie caught up on her beauty rest. She was snoring away while I was dangling out of a motorcycle sized, open air, lawnmower engine powered contraption, 2000 feet above the valley below, heading towards the Annapurna range. Halfway down the runway I was wondering if I had my life insurance paid up…or if I even had any life insurance.

We got back to Kathmandu in time for the Hindu holiday of Holi which, from what I could gather, was an excuse for a day off from school or work to throw water balloons and colored dye powder at every person who dared to wander through your neighborhood.

Next came March 10th, observed by Tibetans as the day the Dalai Lama fled from the Chinese in 1959. There was a heavy police presence in Boudhanath, the Tibetan area of Kathmandu where we were staying, with thousands of refugees visiting the city. The mood was tense all day but no riots.

This contrasted with another festival we had seen two weeks earlier at Pashupatinath, the main Hindu temple in the city. It purportedly honored the Hindu god Shiva who, legend tells us, liked to take a toke or two of the local ganja. So, cannabis is legal for one day each year in Nepal...for this festival. Of course, I had to go over for a look. Due to the throngs I was not able to get inside to have a look for myself, but outside the crowds, estimated at over one-hundred thousand, were very mellow and calm. Those zany Hindus really know how to party!
]]> Return To Myanmar — Yangon (Rangoon), Myanmar http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marjorieandpaul/7/1252164102/tpod.html http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marjorieandpaul/7/1252164102/tpod.html#comment Travel Blogs http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marjorieandpaul/7/1252164102/tpod.html Sat, 05 Sep 2009 17:15:38 +0000 2008-2009 Myanmar and Nepal
Yangon (Rangoon), Myanmar

ON THE ROAD TO MANDALAY (February 2009)

Have any of you men out there ever had to go on holiday with not just one, and not just two, but THREE women at one time? Now at first glance this might sound like a lot of fun. Go back to your college days and run that fantasy through your little head. Fast forward thirty plus years and think again. Well, so much for dreaming.

We set off, along with two of our best traveling companions Jodie and Silvia, for our latest adventure to Myanmar. The country is one of the worlds worst military junta's, but filled with some of the great sites in Asia. It also has some of Asia’s warmest, brightest and friendliest people, all kept firmly pressed down under the thumbs of the generals who run the country.

I have to tell you that the four of us have traveled together on other occasions including a bicycle trip around the Greek island of Crete and a bike tour through the Greek Peloponnesus. So it wasn’t like I didn’t know what I was getting into.

After landing in Yangon, the former capital we headed north to Bagan, one of the great wonders of Southeast Asia. Its civilization flourished for almost six hundred years moving from Hindu to Buddhist before finally being destroyed by Kublai Khan’s army in the 14th Century I believe. During nearly six hundred years they filled their valley along the Irrawady River with nearly ten thousand temples in attempts to make merit with the gods. Nearly two thousand still remain today.

While one of the goals is to try to visit every single one of them, we tend for a more eclectic view of the area. Our first morning out walking took us to a festival which would go on for at least a month. The festival, of course, included a huge market scene in the alley ways leading up to the grandest temple in the valley, The Ananda Pagoda.

"Hey mister. You want guide? You want hashish? You want young girl?" a little voice asked. I looked down to see a nicely dressed young man followed by a little line of curious kids.

“What makes you think I need more women around?” I said only half jokingly. “I’ve already got three.”

“OOOOH. You must be very rich man to have three wives. Maybe you would like to meet my sister. She is 17 and very beautiful. She is looking for husband but we are very poor. Maybe you will take her with you to your country. What country do you come from? ”

“America, and I only have one wife. You can only have one wife in America…unless you live in Utah.”

“Where is Utah? Is it near California?” he inquired.

“Kind of. Maybe you could take your sister there. She’d fetch a handsome price.”

“Do you think it would be enough to buy a horse cart and horse so I could drive the foreign tourists around?”

“You never know,” I said. “You never know.”

ON THE ROAD IN MANDALAY

Our next stop was Mandalay, a sprawling, dirty, dusty muddle of crumbling tenements and bamboo hut ghettos with a romantic sounding name. Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour would probably not recognize the place today.

One reason we returned to Mandalay on this trip was to visit a young woman named Ronda who we had met on our last trip two years ago. She is one of five children from a very poor family. She was also the one chosen by her family to receive a full education. It also turns out that she and her friends are part of a huge network of young people who work tirelessly to educate young children in English language and computer skills. They are hoping for change in their very poor country.

At exactly 11:00am Ronda and her girlfriend Thazin (oops, two more women added to the flock) showed up at our hotel. Before setting off we decided to have a bite to eat. Marjorie and I ordered Burmese curries. Ronda ordered a pizza and Thazin a club sandwich. Keep in mind these girls grew up in shanty towns. When their lunches arrived they were huge, even by western standards. Their eyes were bugging out of their heads. I guessed they had never seen anything like this in their young lives.

After the requisite stop at the famous Mahamuni Pagoda where two years ago we had watched a monk ordination ceremony, they took us to their “education center”. It turns out that the center had been started by their teacher, friend and monk. The State authorities had banned any teaching at the center following the crackdown that ensued. However, their “library” was still open and a back room had three working computers that Marjorie determined had been rigged together by someone who had collected odd parts over time.

One of the characters we met there was a young cycle rickshaw driver named Soe-Soe. He was a father of four and lived in a bamboo hut nearby. He had obtained an old computer keyboard and was teaching his young children how to use it even though it was not connected to a computer or a screen. He had expanded his fleet to two recently and could arrange transportation by rickshaw, blue truck taxi or Toyota van. He had a deal with his wife; if he made five dollars or more in fares for the day she would give him a massage that night. If he failed he had to give her a massage. Soe-Soe and assistant drove us around that night and made arrangements for a van for the following day.

Early the next morningRonda, Soe Soe and a van with a driver showed up at our hotel. I asked Soe-Soe if he had gotten a massage the night before or did he have to give one. “OOOOhh yes! My wife was VERY happy last night because I hit the motherload yesterday” he exclaimed. I guess we were the mother load.

Our goal for the day was to visit a nunnery in one of the suberbs of Mandalay. The nunnery took in many girls who were orphaned and had nowhere to go and taught them English language, math and history. We also took along one of Ronda’s friends, a monk from the learning center. Of course, in keeping with Buddhist tradition, monks are not supposed to eat after noon in order to practice discipline. Thus we had to rush to a local restaurant to eat before the clock struck twelve.

Each person was served seven or eight small bowls filled with curries, vegetables and rice. I was loving it. However, as much as I like to eat, I was no match for our monk friend who was hoovering down the food like it might be his last meal. He inhaled his last bites as the clock struck noon and off we went to the nunnery.

In an outdoor, covered classroom were about fifteen girls (more women!), all dressed in the traditional Burmese pink nun costumes with heads shaved. They were all focused on a chalk board covered with math equations. The teacher was a nun of about 25. When we arrived they immediately stopped and uncovered several bowls of sliced fruit for us. They circled around us as we ate and we talked with the teacher who told us a bit about the school.

Then we took turns going to the chalkboard and teaching the class. We did math quizzes and geography quizzes and English language quizzes. These kids were so inquisitive and didn’t want to stop. However, the most poignant moment came as I was watching a group of young laborers who earned about $2.00 a day sweating endlessly in the hot sun. They were hand mixing concrete, hauling it to a nearby building site in small buckets on their heads and dropping it off for the bricklayer who was constructing a new building for the school. As the lessons went on they became more and more interested in what was going on inside the classroom. They would stop between loads, wet concrete dripping from their head raps, and stand transfixed watching the blackboard and what was being written on it. They would talk amongst themselves and you could tell that if they’d only had a chance at an education their futures might be much brighter than the ones of endless manual labor they now faced.

After a question and answer period, which included many questions about our families, we got up to leave. The young girls all wanted their photos taken with the women in the group. They clamped their hands onto the arms of the woman, sometimes two or three girls to an arm. They did not want to let go. We were told that in some cases it was one of the few physical contacts they had ever had with mother figures in their lives.

That night we were invited to have dinner at Ronda’s uncle’s house. His house was much larger than her parents house we were told. After a bumpy ride down a rutted, dark track we came to their house. It was a two room bamboo structure built on stilts. We walked into the main room where there were ten women and children huddled together on the floor. On a low table in the middle were four place settings. Bowls of curries with pork, chicken, and vegetable quickly appeared on the table. We were directed to sit and eat.

It was a feast. We asked if the family was going to join us and were told that they would eat later after we had left. They had been cooking all day and it was clear that this orgy of food had cost them more than they could afford. As we ate, other friends, relatives and neighbors showed up at the door to watch the foreigners, the first we were told, who had ever visited their house. Several family members waved hand held fans around our feet to shoo away the mosquitos that always lived with them. Ronda translated everyone’s questions as we ate our dinner in this fishbowl with the entire family and now neighborhood hovering over us and watching our every move.

When we were finished they dragged out a little girl (against her will) who was attending a Roman Catholic sponsored school (the family is all Buddhist of course), to sing a Christmas song she had performed at her school holiday program. We reciprocated with a rousing version of Row-Row-Row Your Boat, the best we could come up with-sorry. The fans loved it and gave us an ovation. At 8:00pm we loaded up into the back of the tiny blue pickup truck with benches that served as a Mandalay taxi. Ronda jumped on the back of her uncle’s motorbike and disappeared into the black night (there is no public electricity in this part of the city at night), headed to her twelve hour shift as a night clerk in a hotel where she worked six nights a week.

INLE LAKE, MYANMAR

Twenty-two mile long Inle Lake sits in a valley between two ridges of mountains about a seven hour bus ride south of Mandalay on bad roads…or a twenty five minute flight and an hour taxi ride. We opted for the flight as you might have guessed.

Inle Lake is home to the Intha tribal group and located in Shan State, one of those regions wanting autonomy from the military junta. Of course they aren’t getting any so they take up various subversive activities which winds many of them up in jail. Indications are that more men mysteriously disappear here than from any State in Myanmar.

There are numerous floating villages along the shores and the lake is home to the famous one-legged rowers who fish the shallow waters in their long and narrow dugout canoes.

The girls were loving the pastoral mountain scenery and boat trips and didn’t complain too much about our accommodation, which was a resort of sorts built on stilts out on the lake. It had all the modern conveniences except TV in the rooms. This may not seem like a big deal considering we were out in the middle of a lake in a secluded and ignored country in a quiet corner of the world. However, this was the day that Barack Obama was to be inaugurated as the forty-fourth president of the United States.

This place was so quiet that there were no jet trails at night, nor during the day. There were no telephones ringing. Internet connections were sporadic at best. However, the “resort” had a satellite and received CNN and BBC on it’s one tele in the outdoor lobby. Silvia and two other American couples arranged to get the TV tuned it at about 11:00pm to watch. Can you imagine watching this event on TV from half a world away, while enjoying the still darkness of total isolation in a country that is being economically boycotted by the US. It was an historic and memorable evening.

The people around here get most of their news from short wave radio broadcasts from Voice of America and the BBC. The government has been known to confiscate short-wave radios. While they try to stifle information from the outside world the people are obsessed with getting it. Surprisingly, they keep up with things.

One afternoon as we were cruising back to our hotel a large boatload of nearly twenty locals came cruising by on their way home after a long day of work. We waved. They waved back. As their boat slid by an older man sitting in the back raised his arm, and with a big smile on his face pumped his fist towards the sky and shouted, “O-Ba-MAA! O-Ba-MAAA!” Hope Springs eternal, as they say, even in a country like this.

A DAY AT THE BEACH

Ngapali Beach, Myanmar

After rooting around in the back country the girls were getting itchy for a little R and R at the beach and believe it or not, Myanmar has some beautiful coastline on the Bay of Bengal.

“Paul, when are we going to the beach? What will our hotel be like? Is it on the beach? Who will pick us up at the airport? What will the food be like?” And on and on. It was time to get them out of the wilds.

One morning while walking along the beach I ran into a nice young (22 or 23 years old) fellow named Za-Za who told me all about his family and how he had almost finished a university degree. I asked him why he wasn’t in school right now and he said it was because he could make more money here hustling snorkeling trips and tending the little palm shaded bar up the beach. He did have other things on his mind though.

“How is it that you have three women with you?” he suddenly asked.

“How did you know that,” I responded.

“I see you with them on the beach and at the restaurant.”

“We’ll. They’re not all mine if you want to know the truth,” I said.

“Tell me then, how to pick up foreign women,” he implored.

I was a little stunned by his request and tried to fend it off with a few odd comments that I thought he wouldn’t understand, hoping he would drop the subject. No such luck. Finally I said, “Why do you want to pick up foreign women anyway?”

“Because they have very light skin. Burmese women have dark skin,” he said.

“Western men often like tan looking women,” I told him hoping he might give this up.

“”Dark skinned women look…dirty,” he blurted out. Well, this was a different view of things I thought. Nonetheless, he kept after me.

Finally I said, “Here’s what you do if you want to pick up a western woman. First you chat them up a little and make them feel important. Let them talk about themselves and how great they are. Agree with everything they say. You don’t have to believe it, just agree with it. Then offer to buy them a drink. If they like that, buy them another one. Then maybe a little dinner and then…who knows what will happen. It’s really pretty simple. No problem.”

“OK, I will try this,” he thoughtfully replied as he took mental notes on what I had said.

“By the way,” I said, “two of the women in our group want to go snorkeling. Can you arrange that?”

His eyes lit up and without hesitation he blurted, “Yes, no problem. I will go get my friend who owns this boat out here,” pointing to a little skiff with a small bimini for shade.

I went and got Jodi and Silvia, arrangements were made, and the trip was arranged. By noon they were getting ready to take off into the deep blue sea. Unfortunately the tide had been going out and the little skiff (let’s call it the Minnow from Gilligan’s Island) was grounded. Now, how a sailor who knows the local waters can let his own boat become grounded was beyond me, but there it was dead in the water.

Za-Za and his captain tried in vane to free the little ship as Jodi sat inside the boat and Silvia stood outside waiting to see if this was going to work. Seeing what was going on Jodi jumped out and started pushing and pulling. Then two waiters from the hotel restaurant ran out into the water and lent a hand. Finally two European tourists jumped in and the seven of them finally rocked the boat free. Off they went and the little skiff quickly turned into a small speck on the horizon.

Later that afternoon the Minnow miraculously returned with Jodi and Silvia. They tromped in through the surf, safely back on land. When I asked how the trip had gone Silvia replied, “I don’t think we saw ten fish. It was the worst snorkeling I’ve ever seen. I think they only took us out there to see if they could pick us up.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, they kept telling us how much they liked western women and they wanted to know if we wanted to go for drinks after we got back to land. They said they would take us to dinner. What a joke. What, do they think we’re idiots? They spent more time talking about that then looking for fish. I don’t think they even KNEW where there was good snorkeling. It was just really weird,” she said.

“Oh,” I said. “What time do you guys want to go to dinner?”
]]> Northern Thailand — Chiang Mai, Thailand http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marjorieandpaul/5/1208306820/tpod.html http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marjorieandpaul/5/1208306820/tpod.html#comment Travel Blogs http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marjorieandpaul/5/1208306820/tpod.html Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:50:21 +0000 2008 Travels in Mauritius, Dubai, Thailand, Vietnam, Bhutan and Yunnan, China
Chiang Mai, Thailand

Chiang Mai, Thailand; Following are some of our photos from the winter of 2007 - 2008 in Northern Thailand. While we spent a lot of our time from November through March visiting other countries, Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai still offer plenty of interesting subjects.
]]> YUNNAN, CHINA — Kunming, China http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marjorieandpaul/5/1207497240/tpod.html http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marjorieandpaul/5/1207497240/tpod.html#comment Travel Blogs http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marjorieandpaul/5/1207497240/tpod.html Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:04:21 +0000 2008 Travels in Mauritius, Dubai, Thailand, Vietnam, Bhutan and Yunnan, China
Kunming, China

Where I stayed
P and T Hotel, Lijiang, China
Yu Yuan Hotel, Dali, China
(Kunming hotels)


TRYING TO ENTER TIBET DIALING SKYPE ON A PARTY LINE Censorship, Eavesdropping and Thought Control In Modern Day China Story and Photos by Paul and Marjorie Hilts NOTE! Many of the names of individuals contacted for this story have either been omitted or changed, in order to protect their identities, since all of these people work and live in China and must deal with the Chinese government on a daily basis. Sitting in the internet café at the Camellia Hotel in Kunming , China , we clicked on a story about the growing violence in Tibet on the BBC homepage. As soon as the story began to load the screen went blank before a message saying, "Server Cannot Be Found," popped up. We had been zapped by Chinese censors. My wife Marjorie and I had arrived in China's Yunnan Province on March 16, two days after a week of peaceful protests in Lhasa, commemorating the 1959 fleeing of the Dalai Lama to India, had turned violent. Our goal was Lhasa . During the next two weeks we had a chance to experience first hand how the Chinese government deals with dissent and how many of the Chinese people feel about what is going on inside their country. At Mr. Chen's travel office at the Camellia we inquire about flights to Lhasa . "Flights are still going. We can take your passport information and fax it to Lhasa and see if they will approve a permit." The "permit" they were referring to was the insidious Tibet Travel Permit, or TTP, which travel agents, in collusion with the government, charge foreigners to enter Tibet . The fee can range from $75 to $150 per person, depending on where one secures it and from whom. We find out a week later that the Chinese government stopped issuing permits for Tibet on March 16, but even the travel agents weren't sure what was going on. In the meantime, we email friends back in Chiang Mai and America asking them to cryptically send us messages about what is going on in Tibet without mentioning the T word ( Tibet ) or the L word ( Lhasa ). Several became quite creative in developing various codes to get their messages through the government censors. One Chinese/French/Canadian friend in Chiang Mai wrote, (notes in parenthesis are the interpretations), I remember you told me you intended to visit Miss Babet ( Tibet ). However lately Samuel (Uncle Sam or US government) advises not to visit Miss Babet. She is very ill and her illness might be contagious (could spread to other regions). Dr Charlie (the Chinese government) is about to perform a surgery on her. He and his assistants (troops) will arrive at Miss Babet's home soon. Because of the grave morbidity, no one will be allowed to attend the operation, except Dr Charlie's assistants. Recently a cousin of Samuel, Ms Silope (House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi), has met with Ms Babet's father who currently lives abroad. Ms Silope has strongly criticized Dr Charlie for his drastic medical methods. Later that day Mr. Chen's office tells us that flights are going to and from Lhasa but foreigners are not allowed in. We decide to implement Plan B; move on towards the Tibetan Autonomous Region, through Dali and Lijiang to Zhongdian, or Shangri La as it is now officially known. Zhongdian was renamed Shangri La in the 1990's, by the Chinese authorities as they realized it could become another money making tourist venue, just like the one they were developing in Lhasa and other areas of Tibet. The area is populated mainly by Tibetans with a growing number of majority Han Chinese moving in. In the meantime we continue monitoring our emails for clues. The next day, while attempting to download using Thunderbird, a message pops up saying, "downloading one of six messages." After a few seconds it suddenly stops. We try again with the same result. By now we can guess what's going on. We log onto Sopris.net and find an email from one of our operatives in the US . Marjorie clicks on it and as soon as it finishes loading, pulls the plug on the internet so that they can't shut us down. It works. We score some information. It's from her sister Jackie in Wisconsin who had cut and pasted a piece telling about troop movements near Tiger Leaping Gorge, a tourist destination halfway between Lijiang and Shangri La. "On Thursday morning, an Associated Press photographer was turned away from a flight to Zhongdian in Yunnan province. There were 12 policemen, including several with automatic weapons at the check-in counter. The police said that no foreigners were allowed to travel to Tibetan areas due to the protests. In Yunnan province's Tiger Leaping Gorge, hundreds of paramilitary police aboard at least 80 trucks were seen traveling northwest along a main route into southern Tibet . Others appeared to be setting up camp and patrolling the Tibetan town, a few with rifles. They were also unloading trucks with supplies. We reconnect to the internet and find another email from a friend in Chiang Mai. It contains a link to a news story on Tibet . We're too late on pulling the plug and the government censors once again shut us down for the rest of the day. We decide to move on to Dali in hopes of entering via Shangri La. Dali is an attractive tourist destination sitting on the shores of Lake Earhai with the minority Bai people making up the majority of the population. The Bai are predominantly Buddhist and run most of the local businesses. We hire a driver to take us to some of the small villages around the lake, a Bai man who learned to speak passable English on his own, at home. It didn't take him long to warm up to our questions about the Chinese government. "No one here trusts the government," he said. "The party in Beijing comes up with big plans to help our area but none of it ever reaches the people trying to make a living. You look at the houses that the party officials live in. Ten families could live in their house, but only one does. Then you go to the countryside and ten families live in a house for one family. They also drive around in big cars. They get richer while we get poorer." The growing disparity, between rich and poor would be a theme we would hear more about in the coming days and weeks. The next day we met a couple who taught at a foreign university that catered mainly to the children of party officials. "We are not allowed to give homework, fail anyone and can't talk about capitalism," they told us. We were shocked. "Yeh, it's a little different from what we're used to," they continued. "What do your students think about what their government is doing in places like Tibet , or Africa , or other parts of Asia ," I asked. "They all buy into the party line that they are helping these people and that they are improving their lives," they told us. "Most of them are not highly motivated, they are given everything by their parents who are party hacks, and all they do in their spare time is go shopping." They also told us that these were not the same kids who were coming up through the more competitive public university system. They believed that those kids would eventually surpass those coming up through the private/party system and this would cause a lot of problems for the government. Those in power would want to stay in power, while those better educated and more highly motivated would want a multi party system and their piece of the pie. With that, we moved further west, to Lijiang, an area formerly populated totally by Tibetans. Nowadays it is mainly the Naxi, a Buddhist matriarcle society where women traditionally run many of the businesses and whose people are allied more closely with the Buddhist Tibetans, still living there. Lijiang has a large ancient city that has been rebuilt into a huge ethnic theme park, preserving the Naxi culture and architecture and filled with shops catering to Han Chinese from the big, eastern cities. From Lijiang we would try to get a bus to Shangri La. Several travel agents offered to sell us tickets on the public bus, with the caveat that they would give us a refund if they denied us boarding. Finally one agent called the bus station and was told that Chinese tourists could go but foreigners could not. We continued to monitor the situation as best we could. The BBC website, which had been shut down all over China for several days, was back on. The situation in Tibet was not improving. One night at dinner we ran into a reporter and photographer for a European news agency who had just come back from Zhongdian (names and news agency omitted since they work out of Beijing ). Both were Chinese Americans, spoke fluent Mandarin, and could easily pass for locals...unless they needed to produce a passport. They had hired a Chinese guide with a four wheel drive Nissan, who took them over back mountain roads and passes that were sometimes nothing more than dirt tracks carved into the mountainsides. Once in Zhongdian they said they didn't attract much attention and stayed for a day before heading back to Lijiang on the main road. They did say that they had seen several convoys of troop trucks heading west, deeper into Tibet . We told them that we had been trying to get to Shangri La on the public bus but had been rebuffed. They told us of three reporters who had tried taking the public bus. One was Chinese/Malaysian, one was Hispanic and one was Caucasian. The Malaysian reporter had gone to the bus station and purchased tickets for all three. When they reached the first checkpoint, Chinese soldiers boarded the bus, did a quick racial profile, and dragged the Hispanic and Caucasian off. The Malaysian continued on, passing for a local. When asked how they thought the Chinese government was reacting to the situation they both said they felt the Chinese had badly miscalculated that there would be no trouble in the lead up to the Olympics in August. They said that the government truly believed that there would be no dissent. Both believed that demonstrations on a number of issues would be widespread in the months ahead and that there was no way for the government to control it all. The next day we stopped at a restaurant run by a Chinese woman in her mid thirties who went by the western name of Cathy. She was one of a growing number of young entrepreneurs making some money off the tourist trade but not big supporters of the government. She had her own satellite dish that received BBC and CNN. We ask her thoughts on the government. "As more young people become educated, more will want more freedom. There is really no way around it," she said. "With the internet and satellite TV it is more and more difficult for the government to block access to information. There are bloggers creating sites all the time where information from outside is available." We told Cathy that we had been trying to get to Shangri La but hadn't had any luck. While we were eating dinner she got on her cell phone and called a girlfriend there to check on the situation. "The government is telling people in Zhongdian that they ARE allowing tourists in. I told her that foreign tourists were not being allowed to go from this end. Obviously the government is not telling them the whole story." Cathy also told us that her friend had said that hotel owners in Shangri La were being ordered by soldiers not to rent rooms to Tibetans. The government suspected that those involved in the unrest would try to escape to neighboring provinces where other Tibetans lived. Later that afternoon a friend from Thailand happened to catch us online and called us on Skype, the internet phone provider. He commented initially at how good the connection was. After a minute or two he began asking about Tibet and giving us some information he had found on a US government website. Within seconds the transmission began to break up. It got worse until finally the connection was lost. A minute later he called back and almost immediately the quality of the call began to deteriorate. There were other voices on the line as if we were on an old fashioned party line. Then the call was dropped again. It was definitely a party line call but not the kind we were used to as kids. Even our calls were being monitored. With foreigners still not being allowed on public buses to Shangri La we decided to sign up with a Chinese tour group for a day trip to Tiger Leaping Gorge, known as the Grand Canyon of China ...well nearly. Tiger Leaping Gorge lies about halfway between Lijiang and Shangri La. The next morning we boarded the bus along with a Canadian couple and thirty two Han Chinese tourists for the two and one-half hour drive. The trip was uneventful, for the most part, as we circled the ever visible Jade Dragon Snow Mountain with its 5,600 meter peak. Passing through a small town about halfway to the gorge we saw a convoy of army trucks parked along the side of the road, heading towards Tibet . A little further on the police were stopping every vehicle in both directions. As we stopped, we wondered if they would board and throw us four foreigners off. The driver leaned out the window, said a few words to the guards, and we continued on. We spent most of the rest of the afternoon posing for photographs with the very friendly Chinese tourists on our bus. That was as close to Tibet as we would get. On returning to Kunming , for our flight back to Thailand we saw a report on News Channel Asia that said that Tibet would reopen to foreign tourists on May 1. That's still almost a month away. With the Olympic Games set to open in just over four months, the Chinese aren't going to make it easy for any public displays of dissent. On our final afternoon in Kunming we were approached, in Green Lake Park , by a local man who was an English teacher. Within a few moments he told us that we were being watched and pointed out two men who had sidled up to us a few moments before. "Don't worry, they really can't understand any English," he laughed. "Aren't you afraid of talking with foreigners?" I asked. "I am not afraid. What is there to be afraid of, the truth?" he replied with a smile. He then asked us about what was going on in Tibet . After we told him what we knew we asked him what he knew. "There are always two sides to every story," he replied. In China the government usually only tells you one. No one here trusts the government."
]]> BHUTAN Dragon Kingdom or Doggie Kingdom? — Thimphu, Bhutan http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marjorieandpaul/5/1203257040/tpod.html http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marjorieandpaul/5/1203257040/tpod.html#comment Travel Blogs http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marjorieandpaul/5/1203257040/tpod.html Tue, 04 Mar 2008 14:42:29 +0000 2008 Travels in Mauritius, Dubai, Thailand, Vietnam, Bhutan and Yunnan, China
Thimphu, Bhutan

BHUTAN Tales From The Dragon Kingdom including The Land of Ten Thousand Stray Dogs The Reincarnation of a Long Lost Tibetan Lama Discovered Plus Heir To The Throne? PARO Four hours after landing in Paro, as we walked along the uneven rock pathway from the National Museum of Bhutan to the Paro Dzong (a dzong is an ancient Tibetan style fortress, usually with a monastery inside) we recoiled in horror to the wailing of what sounded like a wounded animal. I turned to see Robert writhing on the ground, holding his ankle, and groaning loudly. "At first I thought Robert had twisted his ankle," his wife Silvia recounted. "But then he said that he had been bitten by a dog. I thought he was joking." As Robert lay bleeding on the stone path, two dogs, one looking suspiciously like a wild wolf, sat quietly next to Robert, as if waiting for him to respond to their stealth attack. "It was the big one," Robert shouted between groans. Marjorie picked up a rock and aimed it at the pair as they sensed danger and quickly disappeared into the landscape. "I think this is a bad omen," whispered Chadoe (pronounced like "shadow"), our Bhutanese guide. "Only dogs possessed by evil spirits attack near the Dzong. It is a bad sign." We entered the Dzong, where workmen were painting and doing other touchup work in anticipation of the Royal Coronation that will be happening sometime this coming summer. Painters were suspended from a wooden-plank and rope structure that dangled precariously thirty to forty feet above our heads. Suddenly, as one of the workers was slowly lowering his scaffold, one of the ropes momentarily let loose and one side of the scaffold began to come loose. There were screams and yells as the worker held on tight, the rough rope burning through his hands as he tried to save himself from plunging onto the stones below. One of his paint brushes came tumbling down and landed at Robert's feet. Finally the painter squeezed the rope until the scaffold stopped. He had saved himself...and those below. We all looked at Robert, standing stunned. "I'm getting out of here before I get killed," he said. And so our trip to the ancient Himalayan, Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan began. Bhutan is the last Buddhist Monarchy left on earth, though that will change dramatically in March when the country elects its first ever national Assembly. King Jigme Singye Wangchuck IV (Wangchuck is the name used only by the royal family) decided last year to move his tiny country to democracy, a move that would make it much more difficult for its giant neighbors India to the south and especially China to the north, to take it over. Bhutan has enjoyed good relations with India for many years, dating back to the British Raj, but watching what China has done in Tibet caused the king to take pre-emptive action. Taking over a democratic sovereign state would be much more difficult than gobbling up some isolated, medieval feudal kingdom. He also, in the past year, gave up his throne to his eldest son, saying it was "time to do other things in life". The next day we did the two hour trek up to the Tiger's Nest Monastery, perched on a sheer rock cliffside, high above the Paro valley. The climb took us straight up through pine forests and then out to the rocky cliffs that line the gorge below the monastery. At the tea house just below the monastery, a pack of vicious looking little puppies came out to greet us. Robert drew back and we formed a protective circle to protect him from the evil spirits residing in these fluffy little creatures. "If this was Vietnam , they would have cured this problem long ago," said Robert. "Maybe what they should do is import some Vietnamese to eat all these dogs and that would take care of it," referring to those folks penchant for dining on doggie. THIMPHU That afternoon we visited the Capital city of Thimphu , with a population of about 60,000 people and about 20,000 dogs. Thimphu has all the modern conveniences; internet cafes are found on every block. Satellite TV shows CNN and BBC but no MTV (banned as not being conducive to Gross National Happiness, or GNH). And while auto and motorbike traffic is growing quickly there are still no traffic lights in town...or the entire country, for that matter. PUNAKHA Two days later, on our drive from Thimphu to Punakha for the annual festival we stopped at the Docha La (pass) at over 8,000 feet. A friend who visited here last year described the trip between Thimphu and Punakha as "a three hour drive on a road that looks like a one-way trail through a big-city cemetery." (from David Summers). And this is the main highway across the entire country. We had been hoping to see the entire Himalayan skyline filled with 20,000 plus foot peaks, but all we could see was the heavy fog that had rolled in that morning. As we got out of the van at the tea house, a pack of dogs quickly surrounded Robert and began sniffing around his right ankle, the same one that the flesh had been ripped into just two days before. It was uncanny. Something was afoul. We quickly whisked Robert into the tea house where he was served up some hot yak butter tea...his favorite. It must have warded off the evil spirits as the dogs were sleeping peacefully in the dirt parking lot as we departed. THE PUNAKHA FESTIVAL The Punakha Festival is held every year during February since the town sits at just 2,000 feet above sea level and is much warmer than much of the rest of the country at that time of year. The festival commemorates the driving off of a Tibetan army, in 1639 that had come to steal a religious relic. The local Zhabdrung tricked the Tibetans into thinking that he had thrown the relic into the river and they were eventually driven off by his army. While shooting photographs one day I noticed a pack of monks playing around with a very nice looking Canon camera. Looking through my zoom lens I noticed that they were taking a photo of ME! How ironic. I went over and began a conversation with the owner who, it turned out, was a young Bhutanese guy who told me he was working on a book called "The Faces Of Bhutan". "I saw you on the flight from Bangkok , the other day," he said. I remembered him bouncing around the front of the plane, from one side to the other, with his camera, checking out the views as we approached Paro airport. He was like a little kid with a new toy. "What were you doing in Bangkok ?" I asked. "I was checking proofs for my book. It will be printed there soon so I had to go and check the color. It is just a small book, though," he said. We introduced ourselves but I had a hard time pronouncing his name so he showed me his Press ID that was draped on a cord around his neck. It mentioned JOMO Publications on the top with his name and photo below. "Ugyen," I stammered. He helped correct me and we chatted about his camera and book project. He also filled me in on the rest of the festival schedule, which our guide, Chadoe, was not completely familiar with. The last scheduled day of the festival includes a procession of several hundred men dressed in ancient army costumes who dance down the long front steps of the fort and proceed to the nearby river where they ceremonially throw the fake religious image into the river. We thought this would take about half an hour, but nooooo! One at a time they came out and, high on Betel nut (and probably whisky), their dance went on and on. "How are you liking the ceremony?" We turned to see Ugyen who had made his way up to us through the throng to where we were standing. "Very interesting. How long does this go on?" Marjorie asked. "Oh, maybe more than one hour. One hundred and eight (believed to be a lucky number) men must go. Sometimes one at a time, sometimes two by two. It takes a very long time," he replied. And so it did. THIMPHU Back in Thimphu we decided to make the one hour hike up to the Cheri Goemba, or monastery built in the 1620's by Zhabdrung Namgyal. There were several monks living at the monastery, one of whom was taking a break from his meditation practice. He took us inside, showed us around and answered some of our questions. He told us he had been at this monastery for more than six months, meditating six or seven hours each day. He explained how he meditated and pointed to one of the bamboo shacks perched high on a hillside above the goemba, where he would sit for hours on end, in the cold, practicing his meditation. He also told us a bit about the history of the goemba and how certain religious relics were gifts from reincarnated lamas and holy men. "How do you know if someone is a reincarnation of a holy man?" Silvia asked. The monk explained that many times there were signs that a child has some connection to a person who has passed away. They might have a vision or speak in tongues, or in languages that only the deceased holy man would have known. Then they are tested. Possessions of the late monk or holy man are placed, with other similar objects, on a table and the person is asked which one belongs to him. If they choose the one that once belonged to the holy man, then it is a sign that this is the reincarnation of that person. It could be a toy, or a book, or a pair of glasses, or some other simple possession. Later that day we stopped by a crafts store so Silvia could buy a T-shirt. While she was looking, we heard a commotion at the front of the story. The woman owner was calling her friends to view an amazing sight. We could hear a Tibetan Singing Bowl humming away above the excitement. We went out to see what was going on. Standing in the middle of the small crowd was Marjorie! She had the crowd mesmerized as she slowly moved the wooden wand around the rim of the engraved, copper bowl, inscribed with the Tibetan prayer chant of Om Mani Padme, Um. Usually singing bowls are played by holding them in the palm of the hand. This bowl was sitting on a table as Marjorie twirled the wand around its rim. "I have never, in my life, seen anyone do this," said the owner, referring to making the bowl sing while sitting on a table. "I think it is a sign. It is said that this bowl once belonged to a Lama from sixteenth century Tibet . It was said that only his reincarnation could make this bowl sing while not in the hand. This is very strange." The other Bhutanese in the store all murmured excitedly as the tall falong (foreign) woman stood mesmerized over the bowl, playing it as if it were her own. She then lay on the ground and placed it on her stomach. She began rotating the wand around the bowl's rim and again it immediately came to life, its hum almost deafening now. The growing crowd became more excited. Could this be the reincarnation of the long lost Singing Bowl Lama of Tibet ? Needless to say, Marjorie would not leave the store without that bowl. It was hers. So, US$40.00 poorer I walked out of the store with a Tibetan singing bowl and the thought-to-be reincarnation of the Tibetan Singing-Bowl-Lama. The alternative was to leave her in Bhutan with her long lost play thing. I thought, at the time, it was a small price to pay to keep her. Now I'm stocking up on earplugs...she walks around here all day, playing that damned thing and it's driving me nuts! Maybe I should have left her and that bowl in Bhutan . EPILOGUE; When we returned to Chiang Mai I downloaded my photos and came across one of our photographer friend, Ugyen. I remembered seeing several photo books in the Paro airport, while waiting for our departure, that were produced by JOMO Publications, the name I remembered from his press pass. To confirm this I blew up the photo I had of him, on the computer, and focused on the nametag. The ID became larger and larger with the help of the magnifying tool and soon I could make out the entire name...Ugyen Wangchuck. Wangchuck...the royal family's name!?!? Hmmmmm!!! I quickly did a Google search and there it was, on Wikipedia. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jigyel_Ug yen_Wangchuck Prince Jigyel Ugyen Wangchuck (born 16 July 1984 [1] ) is the heir presumptive to the throne of Bhutan . Wangchuck is the second son of King Jigme Singye Wangchuck and Queen Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck. He became heir presumptive following the abdication of his father on 14 December 2006 and the accession of his brother Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck . He was educated at Choate Rosemary Hall , in Wallingford , CT , USA where he graduated in 2003. He went on to attend St Peter's College, Oxford , where he graduated in summer 2007. He made international headlines in 2003, when he left Oxford University to fight Indian rebels who were residing illegally in Bhutan . Small country. Small world!
]]> Northern Vietnam — Hanoi, Vietnam http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marjorieandpaul/5/1201749660/tpod.html http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marjorieandpaul/5/1201749660/tpod.html#comment Travel Blogs http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marjorieandpaul/5/1201749660/tpod.html Fri, 22 Feb 2008 03:51:53 +0000 2008 Travels in Mauritius, Dubai, Thailand, Vietnam, Bhutan and Yunnan, China
Hanoi, Vietnam

VIETNAM January 2008 The picture that most Americans probably have of Vietnam was painted during the years of American military involvement there in the 1960's and 70's; hot, steamy jungles, little Asian guys running around the jungle in black pajamas; TV images of tons of bombs being dumped on endless miles of lush green jungle; and peasants eking out a hand to mouth existence in bamboo hut villages. The world has changed and things are different now. Vietnam, though still a communist country, has one of the fastest growing economies in world, and the top performing stock exchange, save for China, in all of southeast Asia. Their currency, of which 16,000 dong make up one US dollar, is still roughly where it was nearly five years ago, which is good news for Americans since the dollar has dropped so significantly in comparison to most other currencies around the world. It's hard to swallow though that something called a "dong" has held its value against the almighty dollar. And finally, more than 75% of the current population was born after the American War so a large percentage of the people think Americans are OK people and they only know that "Americans are friendly and good tippers; not like the Russians and the Chinese." Most Vietnamese young people want to learn English, and not Mandarin Chinese or Russian, since it's the language of commerce, education and culture. They want to ride a motorbike instead of a bicycle, and maybe someday own a car, just like Americans. They want to wear the latest blue jeans that Americans wear and since many of the ones sold in the US are manufactured in Vietnam , they're not hard to find. They want to get ahead in life and they have just the aggressive makeup that it takes. Perhaps aggressive is too kind a term. Take driving for example. Hanoi actually does have some traffic lights and pedestrian crosswalks, the latter of which serve mainly as a suggestion rather than a hard and fast rule. But god forbid that you should come to an intersection that is unsigned and un-signaled. The "biggest and the bravest" have the right of way and if you have to ask if its you, then you probably should leave the driving to someone else and get out of the way. Vehicles flow towards each other from all directions and disappear into what appears to be a giant blender of metal and humanity until each one is spit out on the other side and sent on their way. It's "Idiotic" as Robert commented one day as we stood safely against a building while Marjorie and Silvia were inside a shop. Our senses were so overloaded with traffic coming from all directions, street vendors taking up every inch of available pavement to set up their soup and noodle stands, hawkers trying to sell you anything you ever decided you DIDN'T need, and all of it accompanied by a symphony of endless honking and beeping of motor scooter and car horns. It seems that the Vietnamese believe that the horn is like a supercharger attached to the accelerator...and by pressing on it their vehicle will progress more quickly and safely through the mayhem. I came to this conclusion after witnessing a motorbike racing down an oddly empty street with its horn seemingly stuck in the "On" position. There was no logical reason that I could ascertain, but that was the case with many things. Still filled with visions of steamy jungles and swaying palm trees? Think again. It was never above 55 degrees F and we never once saw the sun in eight days there. It rained almost everyday. We sat in restaurants in down jackets and wool hats and gloves. When we asked if there were many tourists around, locals would tell us that, "Yes, it is the high season right now." They must have been huddled around cans of sterno in their hotel rooms trying to stay warm. Some of the other amazing things we saw and experienced on our little adventure. - A karaoke machine, and singing from the crew, on board our "Junk" tour of Halong Bay . - A rat, as big as a small dog, running frantically through the maze of market stalls on one of Hanoi's busiest streets, just around the corner from a brand new Calvin Klein store. - CNN, BBC and CNBC on the cable TV in our hotel room, along with about forty other stations from around the world. You could watch all the action from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange at 10:00pm every week night. - A computer terminal and internet in our hotel room, and free all day usage. - Dog being prepared for feasting at the upcoming Tet New Year celebrations. It is believed eating dog at big holidays brings good luck...except to the other dogs in the neighborhood. - Trucks swerving to avoid hitting dogs on the highway as it is believed that killing a dog unnecessarily brings one bad luck. - A free market economy that is more like a "free-for-all economy", in a country that is still nominally referred to as "Communist". It's a place where Gross Domestic Product is increasing at almost 10% per year! Sound like another Asian "Communist" country?
]]> Bangkok And Medical Tourism — Bangkok, Thailand http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marjorieandpaul/5/1196258460/tpod.html http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marjorieandpaul/5/1196258460/tpod.html#comment Travel Blogs http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marjorieandpaul/5/1196258460/tpod.html Sun, 13 Jan 2008 14:05:44 +0000 2008 Travels in Mauritius, Dubai, Thailand, Vietnam, Bhutan and Yunnan, China
Bangkok, Thailand

The 'Round The World ticket ends in Bangkok ...but not without another little adventure or two. We stopped in Bangkok for two days as Marjorie anticipated having Lasek surgery on her eyes. After a consultation and assessment of her situation it was decided that while they could correct her distance vision, she would lose her close up acuity and need reading glasses. The tradeoff just didn't seem worth it so she passed on the surgery. However... Since we were already committed to two days in Bangkok we decided to have our annual eye exams at the ultramodern clinic. We were lead from one screening room to another for the usual array of tests. Then we were taken to the "Eye Drops Area" where we would have our eyes dilated for further examination. If you've ever had this done in the US you recall how the Optometrist has her assistant administer the burning drops. You generally hope it's a cloudy day so you don't have to go out in the bright sunlight immediately afterwards. We were escorted into the "Eye Drops Area", as I mentioned, set down into lazy boy recliner chairs, administered our drops and covered up with a blanket and told to relax for the next fifteen minutes. Then the pretty young assistant turned on the vibrating massage chair and rollers began working their magic from your neck all the way down to your ankles. It was unbelievable! Up and down they went, slowly covering every muscle on the back of your body. You don't get this kind of treatment at home. This went on for fifteen minutes before the timer went off and the chair stopped vibrating. The little assistant came rushing over to see how I was doing so I asked for an extension of this service. She readily complied with my request and off I went for another fifteen minutes. After that, they told me I had to go sit in the waiting area for my exam. Out in the waiting area, we had a big, flat screen TV with the National Geographic channel on, and a refreshment area where you could order up a cappuccino, a latte, Rosella juice, jasmine tea or hot chocolate, along with some nice cookies. Finally the optometrist stopped by with our printed results and we consulted with him for a few minutes. Every test was discussed in detail. Finally, he told us we could go...much to our dismay. With the cost for the entire program coming out to about $29.00 US we thought it might be fun to come back tomorrow and do it again. We were staying at a hotel near the lasek clinic where other Medical Tourism customers stay. One morning we met Annelisa from Copenhagen , in the breakfast room. She said she was in Bangkok for ten days while having some surgery and was headed over to the hospital to have her stitches taken out before going sightseeing for the rest of the day. "What kind of surgery did you have done?" Marjorie asked. "I had a little breast augmentation. What do you think?" she proclaimed, as she opened up her long sleeved shirt, and stuck out her chest which was covered in a very tight fitting sleeveless top in order to better display the doctor's fine work. They looked...normal to me...not too small and not too big, but.... Before I could blurt out anything too offensive Marjorie answered for me. "Well, it certainly looks like you got your money's worth. They look...really good. Are you happy with them?" "Yes, very," Annelisa proclaimed. "You know, I wasn't born with the breasts that I wanted but now I have them. I am soooo happy," she gushed before rushing off to make her appointment. Marjorie and I looked at each other. "Don't even say anything," Marjorie said with that steely look in her eyes, as I wondered exactly what kind of breasts she WAS born with.
]]> Skiing In Dubai — Dubai, United Arab Emirates http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marjorieandpaul/5/1195997340/tpod.html http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marjorieandpaul/5/1195997340/tpod.html#comment Travel Blogs http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marjorieandpaul/5/1195997340/tpod.html Sun, 13 Jan 2008 13:34:30 +0000 2008 Travels in Mauritius, Dubai, Thailand, Vietnam, Bhutan and Yunnan, China
Dubai, United Arab Emirates

(Dubai hotels)


Looking to follow the Thanksgiving Day tradition of getting out for at least a few runs on opening day, I felt the old excitement return as the quad chair scooped us up for the ride to the top and the start of another season. I noticed that the guy sitting next to me was wearing a Colorado Rockies baseball hat. Bob was from Grand Junction and worked for a drilling supply company. We talked about the great run the Rockies had...until the World Series, and how disappointing the Broncos were this season. Then I asked him if this was his first time skiing here, and he said "Yes". "I talked to my wife in Junction last night and she said it was cold, but there was no snow in sight," he said. Four minutes later, we were dumped out at the top of the mountain for our first tracks of the season. Bob asked me to take a photo of him on his digital camera to email to the folks back home. No one would believe him if he told them he was skiing today...in Dubai ! It was approaching 90 degrees outside in the Arabian Desert , but here we were skiing on what could pass for a chilly and overcast day in early January. It was 25 degrees and there was a cold, blue cast to the indoor lighting at the Ski Dubai facility in the giant Mall of the Emirates. There are currently three indoor skiing facilities in the world and Dubai , of course has one of them. And, like everything else in this sheikdom of excess, there are plans to build another one...but this time the world's largest. While many view Aspen as a bit over the top in many respects, it pales in comparison to a place like Dubai . I have to admit that when my wife Marjorie and I decided to stop over here for a few days that I half expected to see camels running the streets and public executions or floggings. Well, maybe not quite that, but.... I certainly couldn't picture skiing...on snow. I had heard about the excesses but I was used to Aspen . So, how excessive could it be? VERY! But strangely, both city's, though world's apart, share many similarities. Dubai and Aspen began their modern careers in the 1800's. The nomadic Bedouin Al Maktoum family strolled into, what was then, a little Arabian Gulf fishing and pearl diving village in the 1850's and set up camp. They liked it, decided to stay, and installed themselves as rulers, not unlike the first white settlers who did the same while in search of gold and silver in the Roaring Fork Valley . As the town grew, and trade between the Middle East , Africa and India increased, Dubai became an important commercial hub for vessels moving goods between Africa and the Indian subcontinent. But instead of taxing the heck out of every boat that docked there, the Al Maktoum's, savvy business men even in those days, made the decision to make their little town a tax free port...no import or export duties...unlike many of their neighbors. Business boomed. Traders and shippers came. The town grew and the Al Maktoum's became very rich...and popular. And while oil and gas revenues fueled the latest round of expansion in the sheikdom in the 1970's, the family realized early on that their energy resources would not last forever. In fact it is estimated that there are reserves of only twenty years left. Less than 10% of current revenues come from oil and gas. The rest come from business, trade, banking, land development and tourism. And tourism is the fastest growing of these. While Dubai sits on the Arabian Peninsula , right next to extremely conservative Saudi Arabia , all of the seven Emirates along the eastern coast are nothing like their more conservative big brother to the west. Over 80% of Dubai 's population is foreign born. Walking through the opulent shopping malls westerners dressed in shorts and tank tops outnumber locals by four or five to one. When you go to the beach, you would think you were on the French Riviera. Bikinis and Speedos rule. Anyway, everyone wants to know, "How does this skiing thing work in Dubai , anyhow?" The Ski Dubai complex sits at one end of the huge Mall Of The Emirates on the south side of the city, a $10.00 taxi ride from downtown. I step up to the ticket window and a Gulf Arab, dressed in a long, white thobe and a red and white kafia, sells me a ticket for two hours for $46.00. Additional hours cost just $12.00 and your card can be recharged electronically at several locations inside the facility if you feel like making a few more runs. The cost includes all clothing except hats and gloves (for hygienic reasons), boots, skis or snowboards, and poles. I charge it to my credit card and I receive a swipe card that will serve as my locker key and my lift ticket. Next it's off to the clothing line where I receive ski pants, jacket and socks. Then it's over to the equipment line. Here I pick up boots and skis (in my case) or snowboards, depending on your preference. The kid working the line is from Morocco . I give him my shoe size (13) and he comes back in a minute with a pair of boots. I order up a pair of Rossignol rental skis and he takes one of my boots to fit the bindings. I'm told to step on the silver scale in front of the counter so he can get my exact measurements. He then references his chart for binding settings, grabs his screwdriver, and with a few turns has me set up. I head to the men's locker room. I change into my rented red and blue ski suit, store my street clothes (shorts, T shirt and sandals) and swipe my card to lock the door before heading off to the slopes. Walking through the rotating, glass doors I am transported from the hot, dry desert to the cold, crisp mountains, in about ten feet and three seconds. It is FREEZING in here. The cold glow from the dim lighting (a far cry from the warm glitz of the mall itself) and blue walls make me feel like I'm in Vermont in January. The snow is not unlike that either. Its hard-packed, but what the heck, it is snow and I am skiing after all. There is a midway station where you can unload for the short trip down, or stop in at the St. Moritz Café. The runs themselves, as you can imagine, are not that long, by Rocky Mountain standards. Several hundred vertical feet and about 1,300 feet of skiing from top to bottom. There is one so-called "Experts Only" run which is a bit steeper and narrower...similar let's say to the bottom pitch at Buttermilk. But, hey, this is the Arabian Desert here, not Aspen . According to the folks at Ski Dubai they hoped to see about a half million skier/snowboarder day visits in their first year (2005). They ended the year at over 850,000! While that doesn't exceed Aspen 's total numbers for all four mountains, it is higher than any one individual area, surpassing Snowmass' 769,570 last season. And their single day record of more than 7,800 paying customers (on a Muslim holy day) comes pretty close to a good day at Snowmass. While the skiing might not be quite as good as Aspen 's, the place does have some distinct advantages. It's open 365 days a year, from 9:00am until 11:00pm , so if you have the urge to make a few runs some evening in the middle of a hot and steamy July, you can do it. No waiting until November or December. Plus, there is nothing like skiing at low altitude (the highest peak sits at about 300 feet above sea level) to make you feel like you could win a World Cup race. No oxygen deprivation or altitude sickness here. I was very curious about who might be skiing and working here since it's not the kind of place that would ordinarily attract ski bums. Again, there were similarities with Aspen . On my second trip up the lift I visited with a young lady named Adrianna who, after she whacked me in the head with the safety bar, told me she was from Poland . She was on a package tour for four days. She said that she and her friends usually went to France or Austria to ski, but no one that she knew had ever skied in Dubai . I met a couple from Australia who were stopping over for a few days and decided to give it a try. "None of our friends at home will believe this," they told me. I was told by the people at Ski Dubai that they see about a 50/50 split, in their skier/boarder visits, between foreign tourists and people currently living in the Emirates. Then there was an instructor, Hamdoun, from Morocco by way of France , who was shepherding around two twelve year old American girls and two guys from Germany on business. And so it went. The staff itself is made up of people from twenty-seven different countries, most of who are trained by a ski industry training company based in Austria . And not unlike Aspen , checking out the stars on skis is also sport in Dubai . Maria Sharapova, his air-ness Michael Jordan, former United Nations head Kofi Annan, and the gloved-one Michael Jackson have all taken a few runs here while visiting the Gulf...or so I was told. The area also includes a freestyle and half pipe zone, plus a snow park, where those a little concerned about taking their lives into their hands on the slopes can do some tubing or tobogganing near the bottom. The day that I visited there were a group of twenty-something Emirati men and women decked out in white thobes (for the men), black abayas (for the women), and calf length down coats, experiencing snow for the first time, one of them told me. They were like a group of little schoolchildren, laughing wildly as one after another spun wildly down the course until they would either flip over or crash out at the bottom. After a rough day on the slopes you can stop in for a bite to eat at a huge array of restaurants including everything from a McDonald's (where the Big Mac Value Meal is cheaper than in Aspen) to fine dining that matches anything Aspen has to offer. Then it's off for some retail therapy in a place where the Hyman Avenue Mall would be a mere short appendage on the giant octopus of hallways filled with every high end boutique and shop imaginable. And if you want to immerse yourself in the entire ski resort experience you can stay at the five star, 400 room, Kempinski Hotel, with its ski chalet lodgings facing the slopes. But as you can imagine, there is much more to Dubai than most westerners imagine. Dubai has been retooling itself as a major tourist destination, with unrivaled shopping, desert adventures and fabulous beaches. The Tiger Woods development and championship golf course is due for completion in the next year or so. His smiling face adorns billboards throughout the city. There are currently eight courses in and around the city, with more planned. 2008 will see the city host the world's richest professional golf tournament, the European Tour's Dubai Open which Woods has committed to play in. And why not? He owns a home on the man made Palm Island development, a piece of real estate so big that it is easily identifiable from the space shuttle. Dubai also hosts the world's richest day of thoroughbred horse racing, The Dubai World Cup held in late March, some of the richest purses in both men's and Women's tennis, and the richest Formula 1 race in the world. Building projects abound. The city's skyline is covered with construction cranes. Within a few years Dubai will be home to the world's tallest building, the world's largest hotel (over 8,500 rooms), the world's largest shopping mall, and the world's largest indoor snow skiing operation. In the meantime, more European air carriers are scheduling non-stop flights from the continent. We met two young ladies from Denmark who had flown down on SAS for five days of shopping, sightseeing and beach time to escape the dreary cold and damp of Copenhagen . Dubai is also moving to cement its position as the crossroads of the Middle East by building a new airport to handle the ever increasing flow of traffic connecting Europe , Africa and the Middle East with the Indian subcontinent and Asia . The Dubai based carrier Emirates Air recently purchased 91 new planes, at the Dubai Air show, from Airbus and Boeing. Their order included 12 of Airbus's super jumbo A380's (555 passengers). It is currently estimated that by 2010 Emirates Air will surpass British Airways as the airline flying the most international passenger seats per mile in the world. There is however, the nagging question of how all of this has been done. Foreign laborers from India , Pakistan and Bangladesh work for a few dollars a day, which is way more than what they might make at home, but still far less than the multinational companies who employ them generally pay. Prostitution is often tolerated as "being good for tourism", though a crackdown this week netted over two hundred, mostly Chinese, prostitutes and pimps who will eventually be deported. But then, Aspen was built on cheap labor and had a booming brothel business during the Silver mining boom of the late 1800's. There are plenty of other things to do in Dubai to keep visitors busy for several days. The most interesting part of the city is the area around what is known as The Creek. The Creek is a bit of a misnomer as it is really an inlet off of the gulf that extends fourteen kilometers inland. It was dredged in the twentieth century to make it easier for trading vessels to make their way into more usable port areas. The area has several museums, one of them in the old fort, including the former home of the Al Maktoum family. The museum houses an outstanding collection of old black and white photographs of Dubai in the days before development as well as a large number of photos of the various royal families dating back to the 1800's. The old souks, or markets still stand as a reminder of the old ways of doing business and are located next to The Creek. There is also a spice souk and a gold souk, where sheiks, sheikas and tourists from around the world all hunt for bargains in a market that dates its beginnings to illicit trade with the Indian sub-continent.
]]> MAURITIUS and Driving With Miss Marjorie — Port Louis, Mauritius http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marjorieandpaul/5/1196073240/tpod.html http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marjorieandpaul/5/1196073240/tpod.html#comment Travel Blogs http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/marjorieandpaul/5/1196073240/tpod.html Thu, 10 Jan 2008 10:40:52 +0000 2008 Travels in Mauritius, Dubai, Thailand, Vietnam, Bhutan and Yunnan, China
Port Louis, Mauritius

Where I stayed
Sun Villa
(Port Louis hotels)


MAURITUIS Mark Twain, in his book Following the Equator, commented, "You gather the idea that Mauritius was made first, and then heaven; and that heaven was copied after Mauritius ." Its climate is almost identical to that of Hawaii . I've never found one that comes this close. Not too hot, not too cold. Then I looked at a map of the world and found that Hawaii sits 20 degrees north of the equator and Mauritius is exactly 20 degrees south. So, there you have it. The island wasn't even populated by humans until the 1500's but then it took just a few hundred years to almost denude the entire place of its former cover of trees and other vegetation. Fortunately they have now designated huge tracts as preserves and National Parks, but much of the island is overgrown with sugar cane and tourist hotels and bungalos. Nonetheless, it's a very attractive place...except for the roads...and the drivers. We rented a car at the airport, which is inconveniently located on the opposite side of the island from where our first hotel was. Keep in mind that we're now driving on the left with Hindus and other crazies whizzing around us. Our first three days were spent on the northwest corner of this island/country. Lots of big luxury resorts and all the hotels were full. Then we headed off to the south, though with some trepidation. It had become evident that we were visiting Mauritius during their high season. While the weather is getting warmer and warmer here, it is getting colder and colder in Europe , thus a huge influx of visitors from France , Germany , Italy and England . Resorts were fully booked, guesthouses were full. Nonetheless we headed out onto the motorway, or as Marjorie is fond of calling it, "a high speed video game," wondering where we might be sleeping that night. As we approached Port Louis (the Capitol) on the M1 motorway Marjorie began swerving in and out of traffic at ever higher rates of speed, and laughing maniacally all the time, really getting into the spirit of the game. As we approached a roundabout she pulled out to pass two large trucks. Keep in mind that you drive on the left here and pass on the right. Up ahead, on our right, it looked like there had been an accident. There were blue, police car lights flashing along the side of the road and three police motorcycles parked along the shoulder. All of a sudden I noticed that one of the motorcycle cops is motioning us to pull over. We comply. An officer of the Port Louis , Mauritius Police Department sidles up to the passenger side of the car (that's my side), like he's from the Louisiana State Highway Patrol, and asks if we know why he pulled us over. "Because you wanted to give as an award for driving so carefully, "I offered. "No." "Maybe because you are surprised that any foreigner has survived an entire week driving in your country without being killed or maimed and you wanted to talk to them before they DID get killed," I say. Again, "No." This time he takes the initiative. "It is because you were driving 65 Kilometers an hour in a 60 km per hour zone." We are incredulous. People have been driving by us all week like we were standing still and we're now being stopped for going about 2 miles an hour over the speed limit? Must have been those yellow, rental car, license plates on the car. We were in shock...and awe, of his audacity. But, he seemed rather friendly. "I must give you a ticket for 500 Rupees (about $18.00 US). Can I see your driver's license?" he asks of Marjorie. She has to go rummaging through her luggage in the back of the overloaded little car we've rented and finally comes up with it. After looking it over for about a minute he asks in his Indian accented English, "From which country do you come?" After all that looking at the license he can't even figure out which country we're from?!?! We finally give him a clue (the country where George Bush is the President?) and he guesses correctly. Then he asks, "What do you think I should do?" We're thinking he's angling for some baksheesh (a bribe, of sorts), but we're not biting. Then the light goes on. Marjorie says, "What happens if we won't pay the fine, do you put us in jail?" He is taken aback. Not many foreigners have volunteered to go to jail in Mauritius , I bet. He looks befuddled. "Yes, I suppose you would have to go to jail, but I do not think that is a good idea." "Why not. You would have to feed us. We'd have a nice place to stay and we'd get to know some of your countrymen," Marjorie says. "This would not be a good idea, I think," he stammers. "Well, we have many friends in America who are police officers," I say. "They generally give tourists a warning for something this small. Maybe you would consider doing the same thing?" "We are not like that here," he says. "By the way, how do you like Mauritius ?" "Well, before this (motioning around at our predicament) we liked it very much. But now...." "Maybe you will tell your friends to come here someday," he says. "Maybe. Maybe not" I reply with a smile. "Maybe I just give you a warning this time," he finally says. "Oh thank you, thank you, thank you. You are a very nice man. I will write a letter to your boss telling him what a nice man you are and that you deserve a raise and promotion I will call your wife and tell her you didn't really mean all those bad things you said to her last night. I will say a prayer for you at the church, or temple, or mosque...you choose which one...." "OK, OK." You must go now. Have a nice day...and drive carefully," he says. His compatriot brings three lanes of traffic on the motorway to a screeching halt, to let us back in. They can't get rid of us quickly enough, it seems. But, Dang! No free room. Thus we were forced to find the lovely Sun Villa in Flic en Flac, where we stayed for the next several nights. When one door closes, another opens.
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