Tripnic

That's All She Wrote

2009-04-20T09:07:00.000-07:00

And for my next trick I shall turn 27 ... TWICE!

We flew through Hong Kong on the evening of the 19th and celebrated my birthday in the air somewhere over Japan. We continued east over the international dateline and straight on 'til morning. Of the 19th. By the time we landed at LAX, and made our way through immigration, baggage claim, customs, the Budget rental car lot, and north LA it was midnight on the 20th all over again. And this time there were presents and cake!

So that's it. We're back. Today we work on finding a place to call home.

For those of you keeping track at home that makes:

20 Countries
70 Cities
210 Days
40 Books
17 Flights
16 Passport Pages

I'm less tech-savvy than I'd like, which means you have to zoom out a bunch of times to see this map in any meaningful way. Nevertheless, here's the full route:

View Tripnic in a larger map

As for superlatives:

Longest Transit: Sarajevo to Athens (one bus, three trains, 30 + hours)
Cheapest Haircut: Fort Kochin (25 Rps = $0.50)
Coldest Day: Konya, Turkey
Highest per diem: Venice (250 euros in two days)
Top Bites (Savory): Dal at Bukhara, Burek in Sarajevo, Fried Wonton with Chicken at Mr. Son's

Top Bites (Sweet): Sticky Rice & Mango, Peanut Butter Pide, Ras Malai
Best Buy: Bug Zapper! (purchased in Anjuna for 200 rupees)
Best View: Acropolis at night, Borobudur at sunrise, Hampi at sunset

Best Drinks: Storm Beer Golden Ale (Yogyakarta), Papa's Tapas White Sangria (Ko Tao), Hot Chocolate (Prague)
Best Sustenance in a Pinch: Snickers (but not the halal ones)

I want to end this blog with a cyber-smooch for my favorite travel pillow, atm, co-conspirator, confidant, date, and friend Aaron, without whom I would never have taken this journey. I'd go anywhere as long as he'd be with me.

xoxo Jessie

Last Stop: Bangkok

2009-04-18T08:51:00.001-07:00

True to form, the last two days of our journey revolved around food - specifically, sticky rice and mango, "superb" pad thai, coconut ice cream with peanuts from Nattaporn, Chotechitr's mee krob, radna (crispy noodles with pork and gravy), and this delicious pulpy orange juice.

The sticky rice at Kao Neeo Kor Panich has been prepared the same way for 75 years. It's so good there's a line down the block at any time of day. Women selling fresh mangoes hover outside ready to slice up fruits so ripe and beautiful they cut like butter beneath our plastic spoons. We were here for less than 72 hours and I managed to down three helpings.Meanwhile Thip Sammai Thai is the Father's Office of Bangkok. The pad thai is three times the price Thais usually pay, nevertheless there's a wait for the tables and a constant stream of steaming plates flowing from the street-side kitchen. Aaron went for the basic version, while I ordered the superb, which is covered with an egg:We tore ourselves away from the eating just long enough to catch the sunset over Wat Arun and to check out the wonder that is Chatuchak Market. 15,000 stalls selling everything from knock-off Gucci to hedgehogs. All of it at rock bottom prices. I picked up a watercolor (400 baht/$12) and sandals (100 baht/$3). Iced coffee with condensed milk was mixed while spinning. Totally mesmerizing.

One of the more amusing sights was the section of stalls devoted to western wear:Needless to say, our bad travel karma has dissipated. Just a few days ago the city was brought to a standstill by political protests and had we been scheduled to head out of town then all this would have been impossible. There was still evidence of the unrest on view. Hijacked buses, road blocks, and the military personnel were all still on the street. A protest leader from last fall's demonstrations was gunned down in the street our first day in town. Still we felt very fortunate to see Bangkok when we did. So that's it. Tomorrow we head home. I've got one or two more posts in me, and then ...

xoxo Jessie

Ko Tao: The Big Chill

2009-04-15T03:36:00.000-07:00

The travel troubles didn't end in KL; they followed us back to Thailand where both our cameras gave out on us (ok, actually I broke mine, but Aaron at least can claim innocence). The trip to Ko Tao, our last real destination of the trip was no cinch either. We spent a night in Phuket town, a day on a boat, and a night in Ko Phangan on our way. But it was worth it.

Ko Tao is gorgeous. There's a bunch of nice white sand beaches separated by steap jungle mountins all the way around the island. There's something here for everyone: trendy shops, good food, warm water, deserted coves, fabulous sunsets, and oh yea crazy cheap diving on world class reefs. Aaron got certified and together we logged a total of 17 dives. We saw sharks, a sea turtle, barracuda, trigger fish, angel fish, butterfly fish, nudibranchs, anemone with clown fish, a fantastic school of fusiliers, and amazing amazing corals.Clair McCalla's boyfriend Rob was here for the diving as well, which meant I got to have a little Memphis reunion here in Thailand:) Rob, Clair, Aaron and I had an awesome time together, especially on the Thai new year Songkran when Thais and tourists alike get out their water guns:At first the idea of walking around soaking wet and watching a bunch of sunburnt travelers squirt one another in honor of a holiday they don't really understand was a bit silly to me. Then I poured a bucket of water on a complete stranger. Try it sometime. It'll make your year. I even volunteer to be the victim.

xoxo Jessie

p.s. a huge "hello gorgeous" to babies Annabel Chloe Kornberg and Lena Yael Zymskind. I cannot wait to meet you!

24 hours in Kuala Lumpur

2009-04-14T23:05:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry to report that the nasty travel luck followed us to KL. We only had a day to spend there, and we wasted 2 hours sleeping in because I messed up the time change and then another 9 hours sitting at the airport waiting for our delayed flight to Phuket. Getting on the plane didn't help much, since while we were there someone rifled through my bag and stole my Sapa silver trinkets from Vietnam:(

Despite these snafus we still had a great couple hours in KL. Mostly they involved wolfing down roti canai. We stayed in the Golden Triangle and ate dinner on "the food street" Jalan Alor. Malaysian cuisine is a perfect blend of Chinese, Indian, and South Asian flavors. It's also Muslim. With all those possible influences, there's still no explanation for the bacon restaurant:
The city center was packed with F-1 fans in town for the race the following day, so it was a festive atmosphere. We spent the morning walking around the art deco Central Market and Chinatown's tourist hub. Then it was a classic episode of hurry up and wait: first in F-1 traffic, then in the airport hotel lounge. So it goes.

xoxo Jessie

Jogya!

2009-04-03T08:12:00.001-07:00

We spent a week in central Java. During that time my good travel karma ran out: I caught a nasty flu and went to recoperate in a guesthouse swarming with bed bugs. Nevertheless this week was a highlight of the trip despite my sorry condition. I've been avoiding writing this post because there's so much to cover it's a bit daunting.

To begin: in everything from food, music, dress, and transport, Yogyakarta was a major departure from trends and traditions in mainland south east asia. Our first night we walked the length of Malioboro and came accross these totally weird street performers (note the batik, the turbans, and the dancing skeleton):A major attraction for Aaron was the gamelan music. We caught two performances in the kraton at the Sultan's palace (Aaron also spent a morning at a gamelan rehearsal during our two day visit to Solo - I was in bed with a fever). The first featured Ramayana dancers and the second Java's famous shadow puppets (coincidentally performing the same story we watched in Luang Prabang). Each of these were really just short excepts from longer pieces that can stretch many hours (8 in the case of the shadow puppets).

The instrument was played by roughly a dozen men, mostly middle-aged, dressed in batik sarongs and turbans with pointy ear flaps, and carrying wooden daggers in their belts. Their attitude was pretty casual. Those whose gongs were not featured until many minutes into the composition sat nearby chatting and drinking tea while the others got started. Others got up for breaks mid-performance.

The Sultan's palace was an interesting spot on its own. It's carved wood decorations, tin roofs, and open air gazebos reminded me more of Hawaii than anything we've seen up until now. In the last four months we've grown used to the attention we get by virtue of being foreign and pale-skinned, but the interactions here with student groups were on a whole new level. happily for me, it was the first place Aaron was deemed equally intriguing.We also stopped in the Sultan's Water Palace (apparently the architect was killed to ensure the secrecy of the location of a hidden boudoir). But the kraton - the walled royal city- was better than either of the palaces. Inside the huge white walls a maze of residential street winds around the Sultan's quarters. The houses are modest, but their surroundings are utterly charming (as usual I'm an easy mark when it comes to bouganvillia...). Though considerably less picturesque, the streets outside the kraton were also full of foreign consepts. For starters, like Cambodia, motorbike traffic refuels at roadside stands like this one. But Jogya's known for having a pretty colorful variety of transport options. Couples can go by hand-painted bicycle rickshaw. Families (or couples with huge backpacks) can take a horse-draw carriage. Last but not least, smart money goes on the air-conditioned Trans Jogya bus line (3000 rupiah, or $.027, one way). We were in town the week before national elections (12,000 cadidates on the ballot, 125 million people voting, and only manual tabulation means we won't know who won for a couple months). That meant however we traveled we were riding alongside mobile political rallies - huge processions of motorbikes carrying party flags accross town.

Another highlight was the bird market (which actually sells bats, frogs, cats, dogs, kimodo dragons, bunnies as well): And of course, the food. To be honest, the combination of travel fatigue, the flu, and some questionable local specialties meant I wasn't totally adventurous here. We spent a ridiculous number of meals at Via Via, a traveler hangout with excellent Balinese microbrews. My favorite discoveries were street food carts shaped like boats (they sell eveything from nasi goreng to fruit shakes) and a custardy pancake called srabi.

Less appealing (except for the bragging rights) was nasi gudeg, a traditional dish made from jack fruit, preserved egg, and buffalo belly fat.
As interesting as Yogyakarta was, the best day of the week was spent out of town at the Hindu temples at Pramaban and the ancient buddhist stupa Borobudur. Prambanan has seen better days, and after Angkor we were a tough audience. Still, not too shabby: Borobudur, on the other hand, was easily a high point of the entire 7-month trip. We watched the sun rise from behind the giant smoking volvano that sits between Borobudur and Yogyakarta and quickly disolve the morning mist.Borobudur is a massive step-pyramid. The base levels are square, and covered in reliefs depicting life in 10th century Java. The top three tiers of the stupa are round, and we watched monks make a careful loop around each one on their way to the top.Stone buddhas sit inside these bell-shaped structures on the top three tiers. The morning sun lit their faces through the carved stone covers. The monks stopped at each buddha on their way around the complex.

The morning was a magical one and made the week in Java a highlight of the entire trip.

xoxo Jessie

The Insects of The Temples of Angkor

2009-04-02T01:10:00.000-07:00

In the eight years since I was last here Siem Reap's tourism has exploded. So our primary concern was crowd-avoidance. Fortunately everyone else is working hard to get their money's worth. They get up to watch the sunrise over the ruins. When we finally rolled out of town around noon everyone else was eating lunch and we consistently had these wonders to ourselves. Very cool.

Aaron loves to list and order by preference our trip's experiences. The four-faced towers at Bayon were Aaron's favorite sight in the entire collection. If judged by number of photos taken, they were mine as well, though I resist the exercise in general. At any rate, this was the first place we visited in our three days in the temples, and we chose to return at the end of our last day as well.

Other famous photo-ops included the overgrown walls of Ta Prohm (in far worse shape than I remembered it):The carvings at the Leper King Terrace:And of course the featured attraction, Angkor Wat:Our lazy schedule was of greatest advantage here. We ran into a few folks at the entrance but then had the inner courtyards, reliefs, and surrounding grounds seemingly to ourselves. We saw the hordes pouring in as we made our exit. There are plenty of nice photos out there of Angkor Wat, so you get to enjoy my personal obsession with the window columns and apsara carvings:

Now as to the title of this post. Throughout this trip Aaron has spent a lot of time photographing animals instead of wonders of the world. Turtles at the Acropolis. Geese and goats at the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. This reached a kind of fever pitch in Angkor, where Aaron declared the trip worthwhile only after we met up with this Vietnamese Centipede:
So in honor of Aaron's twin delights (random creatures and listing stuff we saw), my favorite insect from Angkor was this red and gold dragonfly:
My least favorite were the cicadas. OK that's not true, because my least favorite insects everywhere are mosquitoes, cockroaches, and bed bugs. But these guys are gross and in Angkor they were sometimes so loud we were shouting to hear one another. This is not a live cicada (they're a bit shy), but his former skeleton. Like I said, gross. One benefit of the development here is the number of good meals available. The best, was this Amok-style fish (cooked in curry and coconut milk and served with morning glories over rice = $5):xoxo Jessie

Battambang

2009-04-01T07:29:00.000-07:00

On paper, there's not much to see in Battambang. But we ended up enjoying our stay here more than Phnom Penh. It's a quieter vibe, with two small strips of development on either side of the Sangker River. Each night we were in town the grassy riverbanks filled with picnicking families and street vendors. And I won't lie, the milkshakes - Aaron's got Mango/Vanilla and I'll be downing Banana/Peanut Butter/Chocolate - at White Rose played a central role in our experience.

Generally the food was better and cheaper than what we ate in Phnom Penh, which was another plus. The place across the street from our guesthouse had great spring rolls and served a fried egg and fresh mango with their pork fried rice:Of the various Wats and other attractions we did visit in town the most notable were the morbid statues at Wat Tahm Rai Saw. So weird. The undisputed highlight of the stay was the day we spent riding north along the river from town out to Wat Ek Phnom. Along the way we passed small communities of stilt houses and rice farmers, children flying kites and doing wheelies on their bikes, roadside stalls selling petrol by the water bottle, and this girl drying rice paper in the sun:This was one of those times when the journey was of greater value than the destination, but we assumed that going in and were pleased to find the ruins of old Wat Ek Phnom mangled by mammoth banyan trees and the statues around the modern Wat Ek almost as weird as those back in town.

So Battambang gets points for a chilled out vibe, some interesting surroundings, and a touch of the bizarre.

xoxo Jessie

Phnom Penh

2009-03-30T04:41:00.000-07:00

So clearly there's no shortage of scooters in Phnom Penh. No shortage of crazy things to load them up with either:Yes, that's a man bringing a few dozen live chickens to market on the back of his moto. And it's not even close to being the craziest sight there:Fried insects. Rich in protein, I'm told.
Among the non-dietary discoveries was the Royal Palace. The buildings here were similar to those we had seen in Bangkok and somewhat less ornate. I did take about twenty pictures of lotus flowers, possibly because I could stand in the cool mist of the sprinklers while doing so.

My most lasting impressions of Phnom Penh came from our visit to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, which is housed in the former S-21 prison. Only 8, of the more than 14,000 people brought here, survived. The rest were tortured and taken to the Killing Fields, just outside the city. Walking through the cells, under the gallows, and among the pictures of those who were held here was overwhelming. The museum also detailed the experiences of Cambodians who fought for the Khmer Rouge. Essentially, there were only victims here. Phnom Penh was not my favorite stop. After Vietnam, things felt a bit overpriced and hassled, but that's partly due to the difference in the standard of living and lack of any social safety net here. Regardless, I'm glad I finally came here to judge for myself.xoxo Jessie

Ho Chi Minh City: Bangkok reloaded

2009-03-25T07:16:00.000-07:00

If they'd buried Ho Chi Minh like he asked he'd be rolling in his grave. These days Saigon seems about as communist as the Mall of America. The intended statement in the scene above (a statue of Uncle Ho holding a small village child in front of the Hotel de Ville turned Communist Party Headquarters) gets a tad murky when you cross the street and walk past Marc Jacobs and Tag Heuer. I was never one for ideological purity anyway, but I'm just saying...Ironies aside, Ho Chi Minh City is a booming metropolis, complete with Times Square-rivaling billboards, and the densest moto traffic imaginable. Apparently, the power grid is still playing catch-up though. The prevalence of scooter drivers has spawned an moto fashion that was previously unknown to me. They've got helmets disguised as sun hats and Hello Kitty embroidered face-masks among other things. We visited the city's main sights, including the War Remnants Museum, which documents American atrocities and weapons in Vietnam. I found the exhibitions on Agent Orange and press casualties the most interesting. We also took a day trip out to the Cu Chi Tunnels (while you're mulling that over consider that there was a bus line there called Phuc Duc, and we paid in dong, so I've already heard every bad pun I care to). Our guide there had flown Huey's for the South Vietnamese and offered a slightly more nuanced version of events than was on offer at the Museum. He also explained that because he fought against the north his children will cannot pursue higher education or work for the police or military.
We combined our trip to the tunnels with stop at the bizarre Cao Dai Temple in Tay Ninh. Cao Di combines Taoism, Buddhist, and Confucian teachings with a worship of number of saints, including Victor Hugo and Sun Yat-sen. I kid you not.

The food in Vietnam was generally some of the best of the trip, and the fare available in the capitol was no exception. Minced pork spring rolls and avocado juice at Bahn Cuon were especially good. Bean paste buns from a street stall were a bit bland, but they had these cool stamps so they get a shout out nonetheless. Finally we enjoyed DIY BBQ amid the twinkly lights. You know that's a recipe for success with me.

xoxo Jessie

Hội An, how do I love thee?

2009-03-24T06:04:00.000-07:00

Let me count the ways. I love the bougainvillea (but I think I full addressed that back in Luang Prabang). I love the silk lanterns. Hội An is a small town comprised of lovely french colonial buildings, which now house bakeries, artisans' shops, and cafes - each is lit with these hand-painted beauties.

Speaking of bakeries, I love the pastries! This mango tart (along with the passion fruit cheesecake, not pictured) was the perfect meeting of east and west as far as I'm concerned.I love the lunar festival: the locals fill the sidewalks with small altars and come out to float votives down river, play a giant game of street chess or bingo, and catch a school-recital:I love the culture of the river. The docks in town are lined with bright fishing boats - some hemi-spherical, most flying the Vi. A woman paddled with her feet while she downed a quick bowl of rice and snails for lunch. The produce market in town has a section devoted to river snails (eaten live).

I loved the sights. Hội An was a resort community for foreigners long before I got wind of its charms. Check out the Japanese covered bridge:And one of my favorite Chinese assembly halls. I LOVED the food. We had excellent meals at every single establishment we visited. But the local fare at Mr. Son's street stall was the highlight. We ate white rose dumplings (steamed with pork filling), cao lao (noodle soup in beef broth), and many many fried wontons with chicken:

OK so that's seven ways by my count. And I still haven't really said how nice it was just to stroll around each evening, stopping in for 3000d "fresh beers"and generally enjoying the view. Love it.
Enough with the poetry. I didn't love the ruins at My Son. But they still merit a mention. Basically they were a hot and sticky preview of the wonders to come in Angkor. But we did see some great butterflies and lizards.

xoxo Jessie

Huè

2009-03-21T01:59:00.000-07:00

We stopped in Huè for a day to see the citadel, the base of the Nguyen dynasty. Despite intense bombing campaigns during "the American War" this complex of temples, palaces, and government buildings was a great place to spend the day. More than half the originally structures are either gone altogether or damaged beyond recognition. So in between two lovely pagodas will be a large expanse of grass, rubble, and ceramic shards, but in some ways the site is all the more interesting to visit because of the damage. If nothing else, there was a sense of history and adventure to the place that would have been lacking had things been more manicured.One of the more famous images from the citadel are the gigantic copper pots on the site (see both above and below). More impressive to us though were the design of the pagodas. The structures constructed from massive wooden beams, and jointed without hardware as far as we could tell. The pagodas themselves were lit with silk and rice paper lanterns and full of incense smoke. Inside Buddhist visitors read prayers aloud from scraps of parchment and made offerings of food and money at the altars. Outside, the pagodas are decorated with really intricate ceramic tiles. Even the moss-covered roof-tiles are patterned and painted.All in all a well-spent afternoon and a lovely, if somewhat somber, piece of history. Though it wasn't the main attraction in town, the produce market was nearly as picturesque as the citadel. Everywhere in Vietnam we saw women carrying heavy load on these shoulder-mounted baskets . Men carried these loads by bike or moto.

From Huè we headed south by bus to Hoi An, driving through fishing and farming town as we went. Here you can see houses along the water, each with its own rice patty.xoxo Jessie

This episode brought to you by the letter H

2009-03-21T00:46:00.000-07:00

Hà Noi, Haiphong, Ha Long Bay, Huè, Hoi An, Ho Chi Minh City. We didn't plan it that way, but those are the places we visited in Vietnam. We skipped the packaged tour and opted to make our own way from Hà Noi, through Haiphong (where we lucked out and got excellent pork and morning glories from a woman who spoke no English), to Ha Long Bay. We stayed on Cat Ba Island in the cheapest room yet ($5), though you wouldn't know it from the view: From Cat Ba town we rented a scooter (Aaron drove, no more repeats of my performance with the standard transmission) and tooled around the deserted beaches that line the Island's coast.We spent our second day in the bay itself, on a "junk"- a traditional fishing boat. From there we visited a number of floating villages in the bay, as well as some island caves, and a rambunctous monkey colony. The outcroppings in the bay are striking enough on their own, but we saw them through some dense fog, which made the view all the more dramatic. At night we dined on fish from the bay. I'm getting much better at taking the meat off the bones and ignoring the fact that my dinner has a head. xoxo Jessie

Hà Noi - it's two words, who knew?

2009-03-19T01:36:00.000-07:00

Hà Noi was my favorite stop on my first trip to South East Asia 8 years ago, and it might be this time around as well. It's a fantastic walking city. We commented at one point that we felt like we were walking around the East Village (well, maybe the East Village 10 years ago). Super skinny, pastel townhouses rise up from the baby green rice patties and give Hà Noi a charming colonial feel. There are more fancy french restaurants and cars than I remember, but the character of the place is intact. The buildings are lovely, the coffee is strong, the boulevards are leafy, and the streets are humming with scooters. That said, Hà Noi has experienced dramatic economic growth in the last decade, since the U.S. re-established diplomtic relations and the country opened its borders to foreign investment. Our first night in town, we watched young men break-dancing in a pagoda in a public park. At the movies, a pre-feature announcements compared those who talk on their cell phones during the film to crude peasants - this struck us as somewhat ironic in a country founded on the political ideology that the communal lifestyle of the rice farmers was superior to that of the imperialist bourgeoisie. This scene of skateboarders using Uncle Ho as a jump ramp was perfect.

A quintessentially Vietnamese sight is the ridiculously overloaded ride (be it gas-powered or otherwise):We spent an afternoon at the lovely Temple of Literature. The thousand year old pagodas here are constructed from huge, interlocking wooden beams. Inside, they are lit by red lanterns and filled with incense. Outside, ceramic dragons sit guard over the tiled roofs. Bonsai and lily ponds dot the grounds. Really nice stuff.

We hit the other major sights in town, including the Presidential Palace (from which Ho Chi Minh governed), Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum (constructed against his wishes), and the somewhat anti-climactic One Pillar Pagoda:

More fun was the insanity to be beheld in the produce market. Exhibit A: unidentifiable fruit. Exhibit B: Thit Chao (that's exactly what you think it is). Exhibit C: Turtle! (for soup, I think...)Exhibit D: way too many varieties of dried shrimp.Fortunately, the finished product was vastly more appealing than the ingredients might suggest. We ate extremely well in Hà Noi, and we believe we avoided consuming anything that might be considered a household pet. House of Nem served up our favorite meal. After minced pork meat on sugar cane sticks (above) we ate fresh spring rolls (nem) with beef and mint, followed by dim sum. Tasty.

Finally, I had to include this picture of Yan Yan - cookie sticks, with chocolate dip, each bearing its own mysterious slogan.
xoxo Jessie

Luang Prabang

2009-03-15T00:04:00.000-07:00

So I'm kind of obsessed with Luang Prabang. The town sits on the thin peninsula between the Mekong and a tributary. The buildings are dripping with bougainvillea and there are butterflies everywhere. As we wandered aimlessly around the brick-paved alleys we would happen upon young monks, sweeping blossoms off altars or playing badminton using their bright orange laundry hanging out to dry instead of a net. In the center of town cafes and boutiques lined the main drag next to the royal palace and various wats. On the river banks, restaurants served up barbeque and hot pots. Basically this was everything I hoped to find in Laos. Chill, lovely, yummy, and generally enchanting.

I never got tired of the wats here. Each had some particular beauty. All were quietly tucked away on side streets and behind palm groves or vein-covered walls. And despite a town full of foreigners, we generally found ourselves with these spots to ourselves.

There was lovely yellow-plaster colonial architecture throughout most of the town, but down a few small streets were these more traditional stilt homes. This one was surrounded by these unbelievably skinny palms:

We took a day trip out of town to the waterfalls at Tat Kuang Si where I saw in the travertine pools, and we hiked up the falls to a shaded riverbed full of beautiful moths.

Save this one excursion, the only other activity in which we engaged (besides eating and strolling, of course), was an evening performance by the local troupe of Ramayan dancers. Though the costumes, music, and technique, were certainly new, the evening was generally a bust. I saw one of the members of the choir doze off at one point...Though we enjoyed plenty of western-style comfort food in Vientiane, it wasn't until we ate in Luang Prabang that we had anything that felt authentically Laotian. We spent a great night making our own grilled meats and noodle soup at a river-side restaurant. Incidentally, Luang Prabang establishments have fully utilized the power of the twinkly-light.Throughout this trip, I significantly more likely to choose the stores or cafes with twinkly lights over those without. I don't know why more businesses don't exploit this weakness. In Luang Prabang I found a town full of experts and I was flush with options. Another local specialty with which I was quickly enamored was stick rice. The sticky rice was served in it's own banana leaf pouch and I liked to eat it with my fingers.

Another charming feature of life in Luang Prabang is the night market. Around sunset the main street through town fills up with food and handicraft vendors. The town's power supply usually cuts out a couple hours in, and thereafter the buffets and tents are lit by candlelight.

Last but not least, I wanted to mention the fired egg and noodle soup I enjoyed for breakfast. Hot, salty, filling, and cheap.xoxo Jessie

p.s. Look who hung out on Aaron's collar!

I'm Lovin' It

2009-03-11T01:00:00.000-07:00

xoxo Jessie

Vientiane: The Not-So-Unbeaten Path

2009-03-08T08:30:00.000-07:00

We spent a few astonishingly hot days in Vientiane (pronounced Wieng Chan - go figure), the capitol of Laos. The strangest local attraction is Patuxai, an "imitation" of the Arc de Triomphe made from concrete donated by the United States towards the construction of an airport.

The main sight in Vientiane is Pha That Luang, which is said to house a piece of the buddha's breastbone and serves as the national symbol of Laos.

Vientiane sits on the banks of the Mekong River. A BeerLao in the shade overlooking the water was a welcome respite from the heat.
Another escape from the weather was the central market, where we watched children gambling:And tasted cream-filled "sweet penguins":The section of the market selling religious goods (insence, votives, medicinal herbs, etc.) was particularly interesting.

At the night market we saw our first fried frogs. On our last day in town we visited the bizarre collection of statues at the Buddha Park just outside town. The most significant discovery in Vientiane was its developement. Like Bangkok, in comparison to our experiences in India, Laos was looking mighty advanced. The city has reliable infrastructure, easy access to transport, and lots and lots of tourists. Fine by us, we had our first steak and pizza in months:)

xoxo Jessie

Headlamp: 250 baht. Photo of it in use: priceless.

2009-03-08T08:23:00.001-07:00

xoxo Jessie

The Beginning of the End: Bangkok

2009-03-07T01:05:00.000-08:00

We've got two months in South East Asia before the perma-trip ends and reality makes a return appearance on my horizon. Bangkok is our base of operations. Getting here was no small feat, since our last experience in India, true to form, involved tears and screaming and left us $600 poorer. 4 hours later I found myself in an air-conditioned taxi, that used its meter without a 10 minute melodrama driving on a ...wait for it ... three lane highway! We're not in India anymore Toto.
We settled into the backpacker mothership that is Khao San for three nights of noodles, Chang, and trendy t-shirt shopping.After five months of travel in Europe and India, one of the most exciting things about arriving in Thailand was the chance to eat some foods I've been missing. Pork buns (banh bao) were high on the list, along with green curries, fried noodles, and Milo. Bangkok boasts an amazing variety of street foods. I recommend grilled bananas:Taro custard filled waffles:Puffed rice cakes with caramel:Wonton soup:And candied fruits:Not to worry, we pulled ourselves away from the food markets long enough to see Bangkok's sights, namely Wat Phra Kaew, the Grand Palace, and Wat Pho. Wat Phra Kaew is home to the Emerald Buddha (no pictures allowed) and a stunning array of tiled and gold-leafed structures. Here you can see visitors blessing themselves with lotus blossoms before entering the Wat:

The temple complex also contains murals depicting among other things, this guy eating/protecting his flock:One of my favorite items were these statues of Ramayana dancers. We saw a traditional Ramayana performance a week ago and these costumes are no exaggeration: the real deal looks identical to these models. Wat Phra Kaew held up in comparison to the more famous temple sites I've visited in Cambodia and Bali. Definitely exceeded my expectations for a city I had heard described as a major metropolis or a bustling travel hub, but not as a cultural destination.
The Grand Palace shares its grounds but not its architectural signatures with Wat Phra Kaew. Unlike the temple, the palace has decidely Western roots beneath its traditionally Thai embellishments:
The other major stop in Bangkok is the temple complex at Wat Pho. The main attraction is the enormous reclining buddha, though truth be told, the buildings themselves along with other statues and works on the site were more fun:)

Visiting Bangkok now, it's hard to believe that protestors held the government (and the airport) hostage just a few months ago. We visited what remains of the protestors encamped at Sanam Luang and found the park mostly bulldozed over, the protestors half-heartedly selling t-shirts, and the majority of folks more interested in pick-up games of Ta Kraw than politics.xoxo Jessie

Delhi

2009-03-03T06:12:00.000-08:00

New Dehli was our last stop in India. We had the good fortune to stay at Aaron's family friend Giovanna's, so we were in a a quiet, leafy upscale neighborhood in the center of town. From there we visited the major sights: Humayana's Tomb (where we ran into my cousin Cesca's Mom!), the zoo (where we saw the endangered gibbons, white tigers, and some slightly promiscuous leopards):
the Jama Masjid mosque:the goods at the Chowri Bazaar:
the Rajpath, where we were lucky to catch the exhibition of the presidential gardens, not to mention weather cool enough to make walking there from the India Gate a possibility:
and the crafts fair at Suraijkund, where we failed to make any purchases but saw plenty to keep us entertained:
Staying with friends allowed not one, but two visits to Bukhara, where we devoured the best tandoori chicken and dahl we've ever tasted. OMF'ngG.
We finally saw a traditional wedding procession, as well (that's the groom on horseback amid the confusion):
Since this is my last post from India, I have a few general observations to tuck in here:

1. Beetlenut - mixed with tobacco and chewed by men and women alike, this stimulant produces a red juice and destroys the chewer's teeth. The concumption of beetlnut is ubiquitous. The juice is spit everywhere, most mouths show the evidence of a lifetime's worth of use, and everyone from groceries to train conductors sell these packets:
2. Streetfood - We didn't eat a lot of it. When we did, it was generally piping hot or made mostly of sugar. But the chaat (foods made with puffed rice products) were a totally new cuisine to us and one we'll be looking for stateside:3. Haircolor - OK I don't know why this is the preference, but both men and women dye their graying hair with henna. The result is a flourescent orange that has to be seen to be believed:
4. Where are the women? It's hard to capture this in a photo, but women are a disctinct minority in most public places. It was most obvious in places like the airport, where passengers are segregated by gender. I took this photo at a huge Sunday street market in Delhi, and there's not a single woman in the whole place:
5. Sai Baba - The worship of the guru Sai Baba was unknown to me before this trip. But no more. His followers are particularly visible ones. His posters were in shops, restaurants, hotel rooms, and taxi cabs. Recent allegations of sexual misconduct make it all a bit uncomfortable, but nevertheless, this mobile shrine took the award for outstanding effort by a follower:
6. Sweets, specifically jalebis - OK so I've actually spent plenty of time talking about the sweets, especially the dairy ones. But what commentary about India would be complete without a picture of steaming jalebis?
xoxo Jessie

Chandigarh: Modern with a Capital M

2009-03-03T05:44:00.000-08:00

We spent a day in Chandigarh - India's only "planned" city - on our way to New Delhi. In 1947, the newly formed Indian government comissioned Le Corbusier to design a new capital for Punjab, which had lost Lahore to Pakistan in the partition. The result is a grid of neighborhoods, called sectors, organized around strip malls, transit hubs, and public institutions and gathering places. Le Corbusier's most famous architectural contribution is the High Court (no cameras allowed inside), where we saw the "advocates" in their robes:) Though it was built nearly 60 years ago, Chandigarh stood in stark contrast to other Indian cities we visited. No cows in the street, sidewalks on every street: this conformed to our conception of urbanity.

Despite all the planning, Le Corbusier could not predetermine all the development in Chandigarh. In 1957, a local fringe artist, Nek Chand, started sculpting figures from recycled goods (in this first picture the female figures are covered in the bangles so many women wear here) in an undeveloped corner of Sector 1. 18 years later his 12-acre "fantasy rock garden" was discovered and eventually recognized as more than squatter's trash. After winding our way through pebbled walkways for a couple hours we eventually found ourselves in a large open courtyard, with an ice cream truck and huge swing sets. It was the perfect end to this mostly strange, sometimes beautiful, often funny, and always irreverant creation.

We ate our last thali and our last gulab jamun and rasmalais in Chandigarh. The pictures never do these justice.
I miss rasmalais. I looked to see if there were recipes online to make them at home and most recommended starting with ricotta. That is so not going to cut it:(

xoxo Jessie

Three Days in Punjab: Amtritsar & Attari

2009-02-25T06:53:00.000-08:00

Punjab was the perfect follow-up to the chaos of Varanasi and probably the highlight of the trip to India. Amritsar is home to the Golden Temple, an especially sacred and beautiful Sikh place of worship. Sikhism is a religion I can get behind: it was created in reaction to the caste system and most temples offer a communal meal to anyone who's hungry. One problem though: carrying a dagger or spear is one of five duties Sikhs observe. No exceptions at the airport: there's a separate security procedure for Sikhs in Delhi and throughout Punjab.
Actually, speaking of airport security ... women get their own line here, which is a big deal in a country where women seldom leave the house. I whizzed through my empty queue and read for an hour and a half while Aaron battled with the men to get to our gate. Every passenger is given a once over with the detector wand, but for women this takes place in the privacy of a curtained cubicle. We should do this more often, no?

But I digress. The Golden Temple took my breath away.
It rivals my first impression of the Acropolis at night for best single view for the trip. To visit the temple we left our shoes in a locker and walked through holy water to clean our feet. We both covered our heads (traditionally non-turbaned men don an orange kerchief do-rag-style - and this is how we both went). The temple is encircled by a pool of holy water, which people bath in and drink.

Inside the temple we saw the evening ceremony and received a halwa (lentil paste and honey - I like it more than Aaron). Most Sikh men wear do not cut their hair and their turbans cover a bun at the top of their head. There are many Sikh's in the Pacific Northwest, so this was a familiar tradition. Less so, were the giant turbans worn by some pilgrims, as well as the spears and other religious paraphanelia.

We ate lunch in the communal kitchen, which reportedly serves more than 20,000 people each day. The kitchen is staffed with volunteers and we saw circles of pilgrims peeling onions, washing dishes, and directing traffic. Thalis are served in a strict assembly line: get your plate, sit on a mat, then a line of servers pour dal, rice pudding, channa masala, water, and chipates onto your tray. Seconds are available and you can grab an orange for dessert on your way out. The whole process took less than ten minutes and was perfectly satisfying and clean.

Besides oggling the Glden Temple, our second objective was to visit India's only open border with Pakistan at Attari.
Though the border gate remains closed most of the time, every afternoon Pakistanis and Indians gather on their respective sides of the border to cheer and watch the gate open and close long enough for the guards on either side to raise a flag, march to face one another, stomp and show one another the bottoms of their feet, and then quickly shake hands. We were in grandstands on the Indian side, where pop music was balsting, men and women were dancing (separately of course), and an MC was leading us in cheers for Hindustan! A similar scene was unfolding on the Pakistani side. Hilarious, bizarre, and totally fun stuff. Can you find ALow in the crowd?

xoxo Jessie

Varanasi

2009-02-23T21:35:00.000-08:00

In many respects Varanasi was the climax of our time in India. According to Hindu belief, if you die and are cremated on the Ganges you escape the otherwise eternal cycle of reincarnation. So the city is home to thousands of pilgrims who come to Varanasi for their last days, weeks, or months. When they die their bodies are brought through the winding alleys of the old city to the ghats along the Ganges to be burned on pyres of sandalwood by the dalit (the untouchable caste).
These fires are lit with a flame that's been burning, apparently, for some four thousand years and can been seen burning at various points along the river continuously. Pilgrims come not just to die and move on but also to witness and bless these passings. We saw boat-lads of white turbaned men chaning and praying as they passed the burning ghats each morning.
The ghats themselves are often beautiful. Many are built and maintained by maharajas from all over India. They are teaming with locals doing laundry, pilgrims praying and bathing, water buffalo and stray dogs eating discarded funerary materials, and tourists watching it all.

At sunrise and sunset there are performances and ceremonies, which tourists generally watch from row-boats on the river banks. Young girls sell votives and rose petals which bring good luck to those who float them down river. So there you are, floating on the Ganges, watching priests meet the sun with conch calls and incense, and the water all around you is dotted with roses and flames. Unique in my experience and very cool stuff.
One particularly pleasing sight was the Varanasi-contingent of The Laughing Club:
Other new sights in Varanasi included bicycle rickshaws (fighting for breathing room in some pretty fierce traffic):
This lovely tea shop:
And a typically subtle temple facade:
We also took a day trip to Sarnath, which is home to the deer park where the Buddha delivered his first sermon. It's considered one of the four most holy spots on the planet for Buddhists, and it's home to a seedling from the tree under which the Buddha reached his enlightenment, as well as some crocs and spotted deer.
Gastronomic adventures in Varanasi included Nepalese momos:
And India peanut brittle (made with jaggery and cardamum), with which I quickly became obsessed:
xoxo Jessie

Oops

2009-02-22T02:47:00.000-08:00

We thought we were soo slick. Everyone said Agra was a nightmare, and we managed to time everything so that we would arrive in the early morning from Ajmer and leave in the evening for Varanasi. The train schedules only makes such a schedule possible one day a week and we got the last to sleeper berths available. Pretty cool. Except that the one day in question was Friday, when the Taj Mahal is closed to non-Muslims.

In the end we saw the Taj from an acceptable vantage and were glad to be leaving the pollution, prices, and mayhem of Agra when we did.
Posting about Agra is the perfect time to talk about honking. Indians honk their horns (be they attached to bike, moped, car, truck, or bus) incessantly. On one of our first days here I stepped outside a restaurant to see what the cacophony was - I couldn't believe that was just the din of normal traffic. Drivers honk to indicate that they'll be passing you, that they won't be braking for you, and that they see you. So if I'm walking down a road, and a bike is driving toward me on the other side of the road there will be a honk just to recognize our mutual existence. As a tourist it has been an adjustment but not a real problem.
In addition to seeing the Taj, we spent our day in Agra at Itimad-ud-Dualah, or the Baby Taj where we enjoyed some hilarious monkey business.
And at the Red Fort, where Shah Jahan, who built the Taj lived and eventually was imprisoned when his son usurped his throne. The area where he was quartered enjoyed views of the Taj, where his queen was buried. When Shah Jahan died his son buried him beside her, destroying the otherwise perfect symmetry of the site.

So not as perfect as we planned, but enough to last a lifetime nonetheless.

xoxo Jessie

Pushkar (Varanasi-lite)

2009-02-20T03:52:00.001-08:00

Pushkar is simultaneously a religious pilgrimage destination for Hindus who believe its lake's water is holy and for the backpacking crowd who come for the spectacle, the yoga, and the bhang. Ghats - temples that step down to the water's edge - line the lake shores. They are as sacred as any other temple and you must remove your shoes to walk along them. The lake serves more than religious purposes though: we saw people bathing, washing clothes, and collecting water right alongside those who were there to worship. Here you can see saris drying on the ghats:

Pushkar is also home to the Brahma temple:

And this insane gold-leaf depiction of a Jain procession:

Other shots were sharing were of these rose-shaped dairy sweets:
And the street-side caterers, who cooked in large iron woks and then sent their hot food on its way in the brass pots via motor bike:
All good stuff, and we were happy to have had time to stay in Ajmer (with the home cooking) and make day trips to Pushkar.

xoxo Jessie

Ajmer, or how all I really need is good food

2009-02-20T03:28:00.000-08:00

Within the first 10 minutes of arriving at our haveli-turned-guesthouse in Ajmer a mouse ran from the tv stand to the bed and we killed three mosquitoes. Rather than find alternative accommodations we helped the mouse find the front door and unpacked the bug zapper. Aaron was concerned with confirming that the rodent was in fact a mouse and nothing bigger, while I was more interested in whether he fled to a hole in the wall (infestation) or out the front door (one-time intruder). This is how I know traveling around the world has changed me.

That first day we ate a mediocre lunch at the "top" restaurant in Ajmer and then a fabulous four course dinner prepared by "the ladies of the house not the servants" at the haveli. Among other things they introduced us to halwa - the sugar infused lentil paste traditionally served in siekh and hindu temples - and sweet paneer. In three days in Ajmer and neighboring Pushkar we managed not to eat anything but our hostess's fare ever again. This is how I know that despite everything, traveling hasn't changed me that much.

Ajmer most famous attraction is the dargah - a pilgrimage destination for the chishti order of sufi muslims. It was the location of a terrorist bombing in October 2007. Our visit to the dargah was one of the more intense and memorable ones of the entire trip. First you leave your shoes, bags, valuables including cameras) outside in a cloak room. Good thing, because inside many areas are so crowded it would have been impossible to protect my belongings from thieves. Though we know other tourists visit the dargah we never saw any. I was careful to keep my hair and body completely covered.

The dargah is an air complex with a shrine built over the remains of a sufi saint in the middle. In the surrounding courtyards we watched pilgrims washing themselves, dropping money into fire pits, and praying on large walled platforms. A group of men chanted and played drums and a harmonium for an audience of men and boys who made offerings of money in exchange for blessings from the musicians. Rose petals and incense filled the entire complex with smoke and perfume. The marble floors would have been colder on our bare feet, but for the layers of petals, leaves, and - I'm sorry to say- bird poop. Some of the incense were in crystalline form, which was new to us.

A crush of pilgrims were constantly moving around the saint's tomb inside the central shrine. Many were crying, kissing the ground, the walls, and the priests who hit visitors who failed to donate to their baskets with incence sticks.

Outside the walls of the dargah was a maze of food vendors selling meats, breads, and sweets to visitors and locals alike. Among other wonders we finally got a glimpse of the process involved in making the mysterious spongey/cakey milk products.

Though our evening at the dargah was incredible, it was hardly the only memorable sight in Ajmer (which, incidentally was way underbilled by the LP). The white marble memorials around the Ana Sagar resevoir were a welcome respite from the dust and bustle of the city. And the hilltop ruins of the Adhau din ka jhonpra mosque, where muslim families picnic and young boys now play cricket, were interesting to see as well.

Last, but hardly least, was the Jain temple complex just outside of town. The site is still under construction and not even in the guide book, but I'm certain it will be by the next edition. The Jains are a tiny minority of the India population, but you wouldn't know it from the number, size, and construction of their houses of worship.

xoxo Jessie

Jaisalmer

2009-02-19T01:50:00.000-08:00

Jaisalmer sits in the desert in the westernmost corner of Rajasthan less than 100 km from the Pakistan border. We had our first taste of that relationship here: Jaisalmers call their mosquitoes Pakistanis. The main attraction in Jaisalmer is the fort.Above you can see our view of the fort from dinner our first night in town (children were watching a puppet show in front) and below the main pavilion the next day:

Unlike the fort in Jodhpur and the palaces in Udaipur, the fort in Jaisalmer houses not just royal quarters but an entire city. The streets inside the fort are like those of all old cities - unplanned, narrow, lined with formerly fabulous mansions. In Jaisalmer these old havelis are now trapped in a spiderweb of power lines and a maze of open sewers. But the blue walls and carved windows still give it a lot of charm.

I've already mentioned how colorful the saris of the Rajasthani women are, but their jewelry is also remarkable:
Another strange sight in Jaisalmer was the open sale of marijana in bhang shops. This one was at the entrance to the fort, next to the police station. Bizarre in a country that strictly enforces the prohibition of drug use in every other context.

Walking in the fort one day we ran into this procession of boys on camel back, then young girls carrying pots and offerings on their heads, followed by a truck carrying the smallest children and playing religious music with a large crowd of grown men bringing up the rear. No clear explanation as to exactly what was up, but the eye makeup on the toddlers was perplexing. Actually, we've seen this outside a religious or ceremonial context, but it was particularly heavy here.

All this - the nose piercings, the bhang shops, the made-up babies - kept reminding us how far removed our cultural reference points are from society here. It's offensive to wear shoes in a temple, but women's midriffs are normally exposed. It's normal to walk through cow manure in the street and burb in the midst of conversation, but unclean to touch another person or your food with your left hand.

I've been having a difficult time posting about food in India because the fare we generally enjoy most (curries and rice) are just not that pretty. But we have loved the food. There's so much more variety in terms of flavor and preparation here than at home, and some of it - like galub jamuns, rasmalais, pani puri and bhel puri - are totally new to us and too good not to search out when we get back. The best evidence of the quality and variety is that we didn't eat meat for more thana week and never even missed it. Oh, and it's so cheap. To wit: lunch thalis for Rps 35 (~$0.70) and "fancy" dinner of chicken mughlai and aloo matter for a whopping Rps 450 (~$9) for two.

So much for losing weight in India!

xoxo Jessie

Johdpur: an unexpected wonder

2009-02-18T23:24:00.000-08:00

We stopped in Jodhpur to break up our journey from Udaipur to Jaisalmer, but it turned out to be one of our favorite spots in India. Jodhpur is home to the Mehrangarh Fort. The fort is impressive because it's not only immense, but covered in impossibly intricate stone carving. Check it out:

Much of the carving is simply decorative. But the window shades were practical, or at least purposeful:they blocked the public or visiting men from seeing the royal women within.

In Jodhpur we saw much more of the trappings of India's caste system than we had seen in the south. For example, the neighborhood surrounding the fort was reserved for members of the Brahmin class - the priests - who are delineated from their neighbors by their blue houses and pink turbans:

In addition to the fort, the main sights in Jodhpur are the mausoleum at the Jaswant Thada:
And the markets surrounding the famous clocktower, which sold over 13 varieties of rice:

And the amazing fabrics we see the women wearing here. Another cultural difference between Rajasthan and the other states we've visited is the way women wear their scarves here. In Mumbai scarves were generally draped across the collarbone and hung down the back of the shoulders. Further south they might be worn over the hair. But here women wear their scarves over their faces. The scarves are silk, they are transluscent, and presumably easier to see out of then in to. They, along with the carved-stone window shades at the fort, are another reflection of the cultural influence the invading Mughals had on the local Hindu culture.
We also saw the candied fennel seeds restaurants serve with toothpicks after dinner:
My deepest appreciation was for Jodhpur's sweets. I ate my first rasmalai and rasgullas in Jodhpur, and they ended up being the best of the trip. Like gulab jamun, ras are milk products. In this case the milk is boiled down to a spongey disk and soaked in cream and saffron for malai and in rose water for gullas. They're served cold and I loved them.

The last of Jodhpur's delights were mammalian. We saw our first camel (well my first of the trip, Aaron's first since Egypt):And an elephant in rush-hour traffic:
Love it.

xoxo Jessie

Octo-whatty?

2009-02-17T04:31:00.000-08:00

I'm an unabashed James Bond fan. I own most of the films and watch Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan without prejudice, because I'm not picky so long as they use cheesy dialog, fantasy locations, and overly-convenient gadgets. But it's been a while since I've seen Octopussy, and after a month in India watching it in Udaipur (which served as a set for much of the film) was a bit surreal. I mean Bollywood films contain no explicit sexual contact or language, men and women do not touch in public, women cover themselves from collarbone to ankle, and many cities outlaw the consumption of not just drugs but alcohol. So it was a bit uncomfortable to watch James sip his shaken not stirred and banter with Moneypenny. On the other hand it was obvious why Udaipur was chosen as the location for the film (which was taking place in Dehli according to the plot).

Udaipur is a city of whitewashed townhouses built on hills surrounding a Maharaja-made lake with island palaces floating in the middle. Whether you're looking up at the city from the lake, or down at the palaces from the city's rooftop restaurants, it's a beauty.

Though the lake palaces are the most famous sights, we actually spent the most time in the City Palace - a huge complex built over the centuries to house the world's longest-sitting royal family, the Mewars.
Check out the dining room, among other wonders:

And the Rolls they outfitted for Tiger safaris:

Udaipur's other attractions include the Jagdish Temple:

(whose exterior is all but obscured from view thanks to the unbelievable arrangement of power lines we found typical of major urban intersections here)

Among other things, Rajasthan is famous for its miniature paintings. We saw some of the best of them at the City palace as well as unconsciously ironic copies painted as murals on many of the cities buildings:

Besides the tourist sights, we also discovered this scary-looking cow:

Fresh lemon soda (it's seltzer, salt, sugar, and lemon juice and it's served everywhere from airplanes to street lanes):

And, of course, lots more gulab jamun:)

xoxo Jessie

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

2009-02-01T22:12:00.000-08:00

The plan was to take a sleeper bus from Bangalore to Hospet, our jumping off point for the ruins around Hampi. That worked until 10 km from our destination when we ran into a formidable traffic jam. A small cargo truck had overturned on the "highway" (a term used somewhat loosely in India to refer to any road with a lane line - in this case a two lane road with no curb or shoulder) and stopped traffic completely. After three hours and no progress we set out on our own. Well not completely on our own: we hopped on the back of a tuk-truck (motorcycle engine powering a front seat and small flatbed) along with ten locals and headed off the main road. We dropped off most of our passengers in a small village and then went off-roading, parallel to the highway through a dried lake bed. This was my view:
Incidentally, that's Aaron's mosquito zapper on the right side of this shot. The best three dollars we've spent.

At one point when the tuk-truck could no longer make it over some particularly tough terrain was, our driver hopped off his seat (which he had been sharing with Aaron) and collected some rocks to patch together a short stretch of road. Seriously. Eventually we cut back to the main road ahead of the accident and made it into town. It was well worth the trouble.

The temples and palaces stretch out over more than a 10 km radius. At the remains of Virapakshu Temple an elephant blessed Aaron with a snuffle on the head.

At the Nandi monolith we had our first serious Indian monkey sighting.

And in the old Bazaar we saw families, livestock, and souvenir shops all housed in the ruins themselves (despite conservationists' best efforts to remove them, apparently).

Most of the other visitors to Hampi were Hindu pilgrims. They all wanted pictures with me. Pants, pale skin, (relatively) blond hair - I'm a huge hit, albeit an awkward one. Children think I'm hilarious and get super excited if their hellos elicit a response. Women openly stare (mostly with curiosity I think, but sometimes it's a form of begging as well). And men shuffle around until they work up the nerve to ask to take a picture. Often we pose for a group shot and then individual portraits. Aaron's started threatening to charge a fee.

This is as good a time as any to point out how much taller I am than the other women here. I first noticed this in Mumbai at a crowded temple where visitors were divided my gender and I towered above everyone else in my queue. Aaron is also a giant among the men:)

Because the temples are still holy sights for many visiting Hindus, we saw many people bathing in the ghats there. Others made offerings of flowers, money, and food at the temples. The custodians wasted little time collecting these items:

At the Royal Center we saw the Lotus Mahal (dancing platform of the queen) and Elephant Stables:

Vitalla Temple is the best-preserved of the whole collection. The carved stone columns are hollow and act as chimes when tapped. The site includes this scale model of an elephant chariot:

All in all we really loved Hampi. Our time there was full of remarkable scenery, interesting sights, and decidedly foreign culture.

However, on our last afternoon we witnessed two sobering episodes. First, we saw local police allow a crowd to beat an Indian tourist who had either (we heard differing accounts) worn shoes or consumed alcohol on holy ground. Shortly thereafter, we saw a partially-completed suspension bridge which had collapsed four days early with some 80 laborers lost in the rubble. There was no rescue effort to speak of, just some police presence and some rubber-necking. So ... yea.

xoxo Jessie

Bangalore: the most photogenic city in India

2009-02-01T08:38:00.000-08:00

I've often heard India described as pungent or vibrant. Those words are particularly useful because they contain no value judgment. Vibrant could be a scantily dressed young girl in heavy makeup offering herself for pictures or massage. Pungent could describe the powerful combination of exhaust fumes, burning trash, sewage, and cow dung. Or not.

In a Bangalore produce market we were immersed in just the opposite. The air held the aroma of freshly cut flowers. The colors of the women's saris were second only to the flower chains they were making, purchasing and wearing. Red carrots, green okra, yellow jaggery, magenta bindi powders - I couldn't stop snapping pictures. Check it out:

Slightly less photo-friendly, but equally "pungent and vibrant" was our meal at Mavalli Tiffin Rooms. A 14-course all-you-can-eat thali included our best parantha and curry combination to date, a great vegetable biryani, fresh-squeezed pomegratnite juice, and excellent curd and radish (yes, I'm eating uncooked food in India. With my hands. Pray for me, throw salt over your shoulder, cross your fingers, knock on wood, invest in Cipro, do it all). The place was packed with locals and the whole feast totalled about $2 a piece. Legendary.

xoxo Jessie

Houseboat!

2009-02-01T05:59:00.000-08:00

Two years ago I bought a book called 1,000 Things to See Before You Die. I thought the book would help us choose some destinations. It turns out that the book is not just recommending that you see these 1,000 Things but also that you be fabulously wealthy. Thanks. I had no idea. Brilliant insight, really.

So we haven't ridden on the Orient Express or stayed at the Oberai (the book recommends locations in not one, but five Indian cities). And a couple of countries ago I ditched the clunker. Nevertheless, when the Lonely Planet recommended a Keralan backwater cruise as one of ten things to do before I kick the proverbial bucket, I bought in once again. Fortunately I didn't have to sell Aaron on the idea, because we ran in to Tanya and Kelly, a Canadian couple we'd met in Fort Kochin. Splitting a houseboat brought the cruise within budget and we were off.

The backwaters are a series of canals that stretch from the coast 90 km inland. Small villages and rice patties occupy the area in between the canals. So the serve as both a natural irrigation system and a transportation network. The canals are full of life: lilly pads, storks, kingfishers, fish, tiger shrimp, ducks, seaweed, etc. We stayed on a houseboat built in the traditional style of a rice boat. We ate our meals on board and spent most of our two days on the water chatting and reading.
The few times we ventured off the boat we meandered through the rice patties (Aaron ended up soeless in the mud moments after Kelly warned us of lurking tapeworms, lovely) and a small village (whose economy seemed more linked to tourism than rice cultivation, but what do I know).

So the pictures are nice, but top ten? Just on this trip it's a stretch. Once back on solid land, we grabbed a quick Thali dinner before heading out of town.

Yea that's 9 all you can eat dishes for less that $1. Talk about top ten things to do before I die.

xoxo Jessie

p.s. This is neither here nor there, but I love this movie poster. Check out the studio behind this mess.

I love Indian tv

2009-01-27T20:30:00.000-08:00

Kochin is a charming enough spot. There are rich and varied colonial influences (Arabian, Portuguese, Dutch, English, etc.), a few decent restaurants, and a day or two's worth of sightseeing. But it's not Paris. Nevertheless we spent the better part of a week there. Two words: American Idol. Somehow I've managed to forget that while I've been on vacation, Paula, Randy, Ryan, and Simon have gone back to work. Basic Indian cable includes HBO, three or four reliable American programming channels, and the BBC. And I occupied myself with flipping among them all so as not to miss one precious moment. I shudder to think what kind of state I'll be in when I'm back home and in possession of my missed seasons of Gossip Girl, Friday Night Lights, and How I Met Your Mother, and Dexter. Not to mention whatever is on and amazing and unknown to me!

I realize that photo's not relevant to watching tv. Whatevs. Once Aaron me out of the guesthouse we saw all kinds of good stuff. Por ejemplo, chinese fishing nets:

Kochin is a collection of small islands. The next nearest Fort Kochin, where we were staying, is home to Jew Town. It's an old neighborhood full of artisans and antique shops. We visited our second synagogue in India (the first was in Mumbai) - we saw a man cross himself on his way out.

We spent a day on nearby Vypeen Island, which is really a collection of yet smaller islands. Each supports a small family residence.

Vypeen Island is also home to Cherrai Beach, which is unremarkable in itself, but provided a couple prime examples of some basic cultural differences between India and the West. First, Indian women were wearing the same clothes they wear everywhere else into the water: loose-fitting silk pants, a midriff bearing top that covers chest and shoulders , and a scarf to cover midsection and obscure the body more generally. Second, boys and men are physically affectionate towards one another in public. You can see them here walking down the beach holding hands and walking with their arms around one another's waists.

I think both the beach-attire and this behavior are reflective of how much more religious and culturally conservative Indians are. Recently, women were assaulted in a Mangalore nightclub by a Hindu extremist group. Homosexuality is not only discouraged it's illegal. Same-sex contact will not be interpreted as being sexual, so homophobia isn't a determent to this kind of expression the way it is in the States.

All this religious devotion and cultural traditionalism is especially perplexing in a communist state. Kerala has the world's first freely-elected communist government. There is far less disparity of wealth here, Keralans enjoy life expectancies of more than 70 years, and there's higher than 90% literacy in the state. So it's not exactly what I imagine when I picture socialism, but it's working.

We caught a traditional martial arts demonstration one evening. Aaron was the guinea pig for the "pressure point" explanation. Ouch.

xoxo Jessie

Water Baby

2009-01-27T20:03:00.000-08:00

Goa's a popular beach destination with backpackers. That translates to lots of amenities, a few strange sights - like cows on the beach alongside child performance acts and speedo clad Israelis - and a very chill atmosphere. Goa was once known as a raving and drug-culture destination, but aside from some cannabis emblazoned patches there isn't much left in the wake of recent crackdowns.

We visited the beach towns at Anjuna and Palolem. Anjuna is home to a popular flea market, which is mostly filled with the Tibetan paraphernalia so popular with the crowd here.
The Indian Ocean is bath-tub warm. I found a Baskin Robbins, a great bookstore, and some new shades. Oh and Mom, I didn't get sunburned! What more could you want?

xoxo Jessie

The Name Game

2009-01-26T23:33:00.000-08:00

Indian cities often use two names. Many locals call Mumbai Bombay; we caught a bus in Kochi/Cochin to Bangalore/Bangaluru; and our second stop in India was to the Goan city of Panaji/Panjim. These changes often reflect a break with a colonial past, but not always, and political correctness doesn't seem to be of much import. So I'll be referring to our destinations by the spelling or pronunciation I can handle best.

Panjim is the sleepy remnant of Goa's colonial trading hub. Portuguese is the language of choice for street signs, restaurants, and even some locals. The city's main square is dominated by a church rather than a temple. The High Court of Goa was housed in a the best preserved example of the cities colonial architecture.

Panjim was also home to Aaron's first galub jamun. A dense, sphere of fried dough, in this case immersed in rabdi, a steaming mix of rice pudding and pistachios.

xoxo Jessie

Mumbai

2009-01-26T06:16:00.000-08:00

Mumbai served as our introduction to India. We spent our time there split between finding the basic tourist attractions on our own and tasting some distinctly local flavors with our host family. It was a perfect combination. With the Dalals we tasted home-cooked chipatis, were introduced to spring garlic and ghee, enjoyed our first sidewalk pani puri and chaas, attended a one-year old's birthday feast, and learned the difference between a caste and a community. We got a first hand glimpse of Muslims in majority-Hindu India and the beneficiaries of $10/day personal chefs, chauffeurs and maids. And, perhaps best of all, we attended Laughing Club - a sort of aerobics class that meets at six a.m. every morning in a neighborhood park. We practiced laughing for 45 minutes before we celebrated one of the member's birthdays with samosas and other treats. This was our dinner table at the birthday party. We ate a traditional Thal meal: nine alternating savory and sweet courses, served family style, and eaten with the right hand:

Once we headed out on our own we ran headlong into reminders of the November attacks. We rode the open-air, commuter rails where gunmen began their shooting spree, walked past the packed tables at Cafe Leopold, and tiptoed our way through the recently reopened Taj hotel (pictured here with one of Mumbai's famous guilded carriages in the foreground). Apparently in the wake of the attacks Mumbai is much subdued: there were muted New Years celebrations and the city is largely devoid of western tourists. In addition, there was a national gas strike while we were in town, significantly reducing the notorious traffic jams. Not that we could tell.

Mumbai's 40,000 black taxis were curbside because cab drivers could not afford to fill their tanks before the shortages. Throughout our time here, when we have hired a taxi or tuc-tuc for a relatively long trip (more than 5 km) they stop at a gas station to buy enough fuel for the trip. The Dalals, having fueled up the night before, were unaffected by the strike.

Besides the traffic (and pollution) the next most obvious impression upon arriving in India concern its religious fervor. In order to attend the Dalals' community functions I needed to don a chador. Commuter trains (and the their ticket lines) are segregated.

Every neighborhood has temples, mosques, churches, and altars. In Baganga Tank we saw the spot Hindus believe marks the center of the world. In Malabar Hill we visited our first Jain Temple, an ornately carved stone building full of paintings and statues explaining how to avoid "contamination." Jainists, we learned, believe in the sanctity of all forms of life. The most devout don't wear clothes or marry. Most menus in Mumbai offer Jain-friendly dishes, which excludes not only all animal products but root vegetables as well (for fear their harvest harms insects). Inside we were permitted to take photographs provided we did not "turn our backs to the deities" in doing so.

Other thoroughly Indian sights in our first few days included casual cricket matches in Maidan Oval,

Corners shared by free-roaming cows, fruit sellers, and taxis,

Tranquil parks scenes with families seeking respite from the humidity and chaos of the city outside,

And ... Bollywood! Mumbai is the working set for 900 movies every year. And we saw this winter's mega-blockbuster, Ghajini.

Ghajini tells the story of a corporate mogul, who wears a button-down muscle tee under his suit vest and necktie to the office and breaks into Backstreet Boys style song and dance routines until his girlfriend dies and he loses his short term memory. At that point the film takes its cues from Momento. We followed all of this thanks to the "Hinglish" dialogue.

I don't know how it ends because after nearly three hours of brutal killings, memory-inducing tattoos, and technicolor musical numbers we finally made it to intermission and we opted for dinner instead of act two. That's not to say I wasn't a fan though. I'd go back for the second half or another Bollywood film in a heartbeat.

xoxo Jessie

Tanzania & Safari

2009-01-22T03:49:00.000-08:00

There is probably no trip more photo-focused than an African safari. So this should be a post with lots and lots of stunning pictures. However, upon finishing safari and arriving in India, I promptly left my photo storage drive in an internet cafe. I know.

So instead of seeing the cheetahs, lions, elephants, rhinos, monkeys, baboons, giraffes, hyenas, hippos, vultures, and warthogs like I did you get two photos of cats I grabbed from Zoe's facebook page and a lone photo of a giraffe that managed to remain with me despite my ineptitude.

Tanzania was a remarkable place to visit. I was constantly checking my urge to compare my experiences there with images from the Lion King and other stereotypes because thanks to them everything was both foreign and familiar.

Before I saw any wild animals, I stayed in a city of more than 1 million people but only one stoplight, saw an army squadron torturing a man on the side of the highway, learned a song whose chorus includes the phrase "Hakuna Matata," and withdrew 400,000 shillings in the 1,000 shilling denominations printed before rampant inflation. So you could say it was easy to resort to cliche.

But the safari did not fail to be an exhilarating learning experience. I learned that warthogs are adorable, leopards are shy, giraffes are beautiful (unless they need to drink in which case they're hilarious), lions are not, elephants are shy, and bugs are the scariest animals in the Serengeti. Oh and zebras are so common I almost forgot to mention them.

Here's something: did you know cheetahs like to climb on top of safari jeeps? They get a better view of the plains. Plus they're just kind of chummy. But remember to open the door if they fall through the roof hatch.

Also, you should know that millions of dung beetles follow millions of wildebeest across Africa every year and fertilize the plains so that (if) and when the rains do come the grass grows an inch per day.

I discovered off-roading, and I rediscovered outdoor showers. I learned how to eat a bungo and mom learned she was allergic:)

I met a Maasai chief in royal blue wellies, rubbed his children's shaven heads, and toured his wives' cow dung plastered homes. Their brilliant red robes used to be died with clay, but now they import from India just like the rest of us.

Finally, I learned how fragile all of it is. This year the rains have not come as they ought and the plants and animals, both wild and farmed, are dying. I dived down to the only reef in the Indian Ocean that's growing not shrinking. I was on what should have been the first, but instead was the last, of the tours for the season, because the economic crisis has forced travelers to cancel their safaris - leaving the industry they feed as malnourished as the landscape they explore.

So I feel lucky to have seen all this, especially since I got to share it with my family. Eventually I'll get to post pictures of Zoe covered in dust, mom wrapped in a turban, Sophie drinking from coconuts, and Dad on a mysterious moving sand dune.

xoxo Jessie

Catching up: Istanbul, take two

2009-01-19T04:20:00.000-08:00

We got a few last days in Istanbul before heading our separate ways for the holidays. The second time around we were old pros: we stayed in the cool side of town, chilled with the locals, and checked the last of the major tourist attractions off our list.

First on the agenda was Dolmabahce Palace, where the sultans moved when Topkapi began to cramp their style. It did not disappoint. In terms of ridiculousness and ostentation I think it surpasses Versailles. To the left is the crystal staircase (the banister supports are made of carved rock crystal). Another favorite spot is the modest room allotted for religious ceremonies:

Aaron's favorite find in the treasuries? A spiff hide-a-way liquor cabinet:

Mine? The demitasse, duh.

We spent a day wandering around our neighborhood, Beyoglu, which is home to some really fun antique shops. Most were selling kitchy 50's retro stuff or finer goods from Ottoman days, but A la Turca, a four story town house meticulously decorated with carpets and other Turkish treasures, was where Aaron and I lost our heads.

Every surface was covered with the classiest examples of the most stereotypical antiques. Interspersed were things we'd never dreamed of: deer antler cutlery, ten foot tall wooden birdcages, ostrich egg bowls. It was a kind of high-brow hipster Neverland.

Better still we got keyed in to the local music scene over two evenings with an old schoolmate from Castilleja, Belkis Boyacigillar. Belkis has been working for Istanbul-based entertainment group Babylon since college and introduced us to Turkey's hottest selling recording artist (a clarinetist) who was in town performing with the saxophonist from one of Aaron's haunts, NuBlu.

A few last notes. First, I think I've yet to mention the ever present evil eye in any of my posts from Turkey. We saw this symbol on everything from doilies to jewelry to doorknobs. A group of small girls in Konya waved them at us for protection while peppering us with questions about America. This was my favorite use though:

And while we're on food, the candied quince with clotted cream we ate upon our return to the pudding shop Saray deserve some recognition. Gorgeous, no?

xoxo Jessie

Catching up: Safranbolu

2009-01-19T03:33:00.001-08:00

Safranbolu is a small town in northern Turkey that has maintained traditional Ottoman building styles and society for the last four hundred years, give or take. By mid-December we found it largely deserted. The air was thick with smoke from wood-burning stoves and chimneys that heat the city through it snowy winter. The architecture reminded us of buildings in the old town section of Plovdiv, but also the mock-Tudor mansions of Beverly Hills:)

We saw a number of traditional craftsman at work, including a number of blacksmiths and this saddle maker.

Happily for us, Safranbolu is also the native habitat of the safran flower and the original home of lokrum, or Turkish delight. The safran flavor was Aaron's favorite. I, predictably, went for chocolate covered pistachio.

xoxo Jessie

Catching up: Cappadocia

2009-01-08T09:30:00.000-08:00

In the middle of Turkey, Cappadocia is home to some of the most bizarre rock formations in the world. Called "fairy chimneys" but often resembling something more phallic than bedtime story, these geologic oddities have been home to everyone from the Hittites and early Christians (who also moved underground) to present-day Turks and tourists. We stayed in Goreme in what was once a church, carved into a cliff-side and improved with electricity and cable tv.

Goreme is home to an open air museum made up of a former cave city including homes, gathering places, and churches.

I don't know if you can really see it, but there's snow on the ground! A number of the churches still have their frescoes more or less intact.

From Goreme, we visited the nearby underground city in Kaymakli. Begun by Hittites and expanded by early Christians, the underground city is over 350 feet deep and could hold as many as 3,000 people for as long as 6 months. There were family quarters, food storage facilities, laundry rooms, kitchens, churches, and security systems all dug around a single well. This underground city was connected to another one roughly 5 miles away. While we were there only the first five stories were accessible because the porous sandstone walls of the lower floors had collapsed. The rainwater dripping from the walls around us wasn't the most comforting sight.

We also visited Pasabagi home to Cappadocia's most famous collection of chimneys. We had the place to ourselves until a tour bus of Japanese tourists arrived. When their guide announced we were American we got a big round of applause. Go figure.

Our favorite meals in Goreme were served up by a Turkish man who spent 15 years in Spain as a Flamenco dancer. Pides and Efes next to a wood-burning stove are the best end to cold days.

Our last night in town we hiked through the so-called Pigeon Valley where we totally alone among the best formations and dwelling clusters of the trip. A great end to a really interesting place.
That was a month ago, so I've got my work cut out for me. Although since my flash drive got stolen and I lost my copy of my safari pix the job of catching up has gotten considerably simpler.

xoxo Jessie

Honey ... I'm home!

2009-01-08T09:24:00.000-08:00

OK well not really, but I'm out of Africa and back in touch. So stay tuned for belated reflections on Cappadocia, Istanbul (take two), Doha, Safari, Zanzibar, and Mumbai!

In the meantime, Happy New Year!! My resolution was to be in better touch, so expect an email shortly:)

xoxo Jessie

Konya: Whirling, etc.

2008-12-19T14:43:00.000-08:00

Without knowing what it was exactly, we went out of our way to catch the dervish festival in Konya. Here's what I learned when we got there: this year marks the 735th anniversary of the death of the mystic Sufi poet Mevlana (or Rumi, as he's referred to in the States). Every year his followers gather in Konya, where Mevlana worked and is buried. For decades this was the only dervish ceremony allowed all year by Atatürk's vehemently secular regime. The dervishes don't perform, there is no clapping, there is only prayer, and the music and the relationships between the dervish pupils and teachers, rather than the whirling, are the central features of the process. The experience was mesmerizing.

Apart from the festival, the Mevlana Museum has a noteworthy series of roofs,

and Konya is home to unique (and kind of gross) compacted powdered sugar candy:

In Konya, we also found some good examples of food items we've seen throughout Turkey. This churro-like pastry (generally served cold and without the benefit of cinnamon I'm sorry to report):

And the humongous döner skewer:

This year, the Mevlana festival fell the same week as Eid-ul-Adha or Kurban Bayramı. The first dozen or so people we asked about this holiday could only explain that it involved slaughtering a goat or sheep. Eventually we learned that this holiday commemorates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son. It's something like the Turkish Thanksgiving: everyone spends time with family, eating ritually slaughtered goats, sheep, and cows, and donating the same to those less fortunate. The holiday lasted for eight days in Turkey. And each day's evening news was dominated by footage of escaping livestock. We left Konya on the last day of Bayramı. The bus station was full of hundreds of families seeing their (mandatorily) enlisted sons back off to military service.

xoxo Jessie

Antalya

2008-12-19T14:08:00.000-08:00

We stopped for a day in Antalya in transit from the Mediterranean coast to central Turkey. Once again the reality far exceeded my guide book-based expectations (as I'm writing this - my second consecutive post on this theme - I'm realizing that perhaps I need to pay a bit more attention to my travel research ... hmm). Anyway this was the steep descent through a charming seaside town to the harbor I was expecting to find in Olympos.

We stayed in a charming pension with a breakfast patio full of peach trees. In town we found a great bookstore (an opportunity totally wasted on me since one of my two purchases was by P.J. O'Rourke, who I thought was supposed to be an "American humorist" but turned out to be little more than a classic jerk). The proprietor - middle-aged, loud, and curmudgeonly but incredibly well-read - was full of memorable pronouncements like, "Murakami? Yes, I read him. A hack! Boring!!" Classic.

Finally we ate our first Turkish tost (basically panini) while the sun set on this scene.

xoxo Jessie

The Expectations Game: Olympos

2008-12-19T08:38:00.000-08:00

So we read through the Mediterranean coast section of our Lonely Planet and decided on Olympos as our next destination. By the time we actually got there, however, I had worked up a set of expectations based on the descriptions of at least three other places we'd reviewed and rejected. So there wasn't so much a lovely town as a lovely woods, and not so much a steep descent through town to the harbor as a muddy slop through underbrush to the pebble beach. But guess what? All the surprises were for the best. We were staying in a log cabin on a glorified campsite surrounded by pine forest and granite cliffs. And the beach was totally gorgeous.

I also managed to forget the main attraction, the ancient ruins. The city of Olympos is largely unexcavated, despite having been a relatively important religious and commercial center for the ancient Greeks. It was a surreal change of pace to hunt for columns, tombs, and ancient structures in the undergrowth and greenery. When or where else I will walk on millennia-old mosaic floors I don't know.

Finally, there was the Chimera - natural gas flames that "scientists" can neither explain nor extinguish, apparently - which wasn't in my guide-book for me to forget or confuse.

So Olympos, you surprised me. Thanks!

xoxo Jessie

Pamukkale & Hierapolis

2008-12-19T08:01:00.000-08:00

Pamukkale is famous for it's cascading travertine pools. The natural hot springs that produced them have largely run dry, but they're still an astonishing sight.

Here's the detail that's missing from these photos: Turkish pop music. There is a time and a place for thumping dance music. It's well after my second drink, there's a dance floor, and it's lit with a strobe light. The appropriate soundtrack for this vista is not Womanizer, or worse, the club remix of Womanizer. And I'm actually a Britney fan. Imagine Aaron's thoughts on the subject...

Anyway, we hiked up through the disco cum travertines to the extensive ruins of the Roman resort town Hierapolis that sit above them. A necropolis lines the road out of town. We clambered among the sarcophagi for most of the afternoon.

Other remnants of the ancient cıty include an industrial oıl press, bath houses, an ancient (irrigated) latrine, and a well preserved theater. Nice stuff, huh?

xoxo Jessie

p.s. Happy Birthday to Jake (remember Democrats are sexy...)!

Selçuk & Ephesus

2008-12-17T13:11:00.000-08:00

The ancient ruins at Ephesus are some of the most famous in the world. The city was home to one of the seven wonders of the ancient world: the Temple of Artemis of which only one gigantic column remains. In subsequent generations the Romans enjoyed baths, buried gladiators, and erected a magnificent library. Given all this, the best thing about Ephesus for us was that we were their almost by ourselves. Well except for these weirdos:

Seriusly though, the Celsus Library is something special.

We found still more to enjoy in the nearby town of Selçuk. First, for two weekdays we marveled at the number of men hanging out in the center of town all day doing little more than chatting and drinking çay.

Thanks to one restaurant in particular, Selçuk was also the site of a minor gastronomic miracle. Behold the Turkish pide (perfect pızza dough with minced meat and egg) and its brilliant peanut butter and sugar filled cousin:

Finally, Selçuk had some irresistible public exercise machines. Good thing because I went back for seconds of that peanut butter thingy.

xoxo Jessie

Istanbul Miscellany

2008-12-16T05:53:00.000-08:00

So not surprisingly we saw things worth remembering in Istanbul that can neither be described as a food nor a site. For example, our favorite oddities in the Grand Bazaar were these pipes:

And this perplexing porcelain ensemble:

Pomegranites are grown throughout Turkey and you can buy fresh pomegranite juice on the street anywhere in Istanbul. I recognize this is food-related. So shoot me.

This shop had two traditional musicians, served nothing but pomegranite juice and was packed all day:

Next up: the fish market. All goods apparently caught nearby and no ice anywhere in sight.

Along with four hundred or so middle schoolers, we caught an historically accurate jannisary band performance at the military museum (this shot captures about half the action and none of the booming).

Finally, we spent an afternoon in the Islamic Art Museum (housing the most extensive collection in the world now that the Baghdad Museum's is gone and funded almost entirely by the San Francisco Bay Area Carpet Association, I kid you not). The calligraphy was really amazing - this scroll commemorated the Ottoman victory in the Cretan town of Hania, where we had been just a week earlier.

So that was Istanbul, take one. After five days we weren't ready to leave, so we'll be back for another half-week soon.

xoxo Jessie

Traveling to Istanbul? Pack your Sweettooth

2008-12-13T12:39:00.001-08:00

My memories of Turkish cuisine were none too fond. Basically I had an enduring image of a steaming clay pot full of grease and lamb. Yuck. We sat down to our first meal in Sultanahmet and I ordered mousaka. We'd just come from Greece, where the mousaka was a highlight, and in my mind a non-Turkish cuisine was the safest bet. Guess what mousaka means in Turkisk? A steaming clay pot full of grease, lamb, and eggplant, that's what. Double Yuck.

But that turned out to be the worst of it. After that night we stuck to cafeteria-style venues in the less touristy neighborhoods, where we could visually inspect our options before choosing a meal. There's great rice here, cooked in chicken broth and mixed with chick peas and pinenuts. And the kebabs are a safe bet.

Better still, we quickly realized that what the local cusine lacked in savory options it more than made up for in sweets. First of all, the baklavas here are head and shoulders above anything we had in Bosnia and Greece. The selections at Güllüglou were the best.

Perhaps even better was my reintroduction to Turkish puddings. Our favorites were Muhallebici (rice pudding with chocolate sauce) and plain chocolate at Saray on Istikal Caddessi:

Other dietary discoveries that warrant mention (though not consumption): kokorec - rotisserie lamb intestines - so gross.

And these fish restaurants along the waterfront - the kitchen is on the boat and the tables are on shore. Better to watch than to eat though.

So that was the best and the worst of eating in Istanbul. Now we know the ropes, so hopefully our return trip will be more successful.

xoxo Jessie

Istanbul

2008-12-13T11:40:00.000-08:00

After a few weeks of small, deserted Greek towns the loud, vigorous crowds of Istanbul were an exciting change of pace. In five days, Aaron took over 300 pictures (ahem, manic!!), so I'll be posting in installments. Today: the historic sites.

The Blue Mosque may be the most famous mosque in the world. The exterior is majestic. The interior is a visual maze of porcelain tile work.

Directly opposite the Blue Mosque is its less refined, though no less impressive neighbor, Aya Sofya (which I could have sworn was Hagia Sofia the last time I was in town, but apparently not).

Sofya was a Christian Cathedral in Constantinople and this history is partially preserved in the structure of the building and the uncovered ceiling mosaics.

While on the topic of mosques ... this is our first Muslim city since Sarajevo and our first Muslim country period. Thanks in large part to the secularizing reforms of Turkey's long-time leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (yes he changed his name to Father of the Turks and had his face printed on every single denomination of Turkish currency as well), Istanbul is a totally cosmopolitan city and one of the few Muslim ones that welcomes non-members into its mosques and other religous establishments. I've been wearing jeans without a problem and donning a headscarf only in the mosques themselves.

Anyway, the other main attraction in the old quarter of Sultanahmet is the Topkapi Palace, which housed the sultan - and famously his harem - for most of the Ottoman empire. Nice work if you can get it:

Of course nothing's easy, and the tradition throughout most of the empire was to produce as many potential heirs as possible (hence the harem) and then let the whole thing sort itself out via fratricide. Eunuchs were entrusted with the delicate tasks of strangling (silk cord was preferred) the less than fortunate princes and drowning (in sacks in the Bosphorus) the pregnant members of the Harem. Last man standing gets the posh digs.

All things considered I would have much preferred to land somewhere in the middle tiers of the aristocracy. Granted, no palace, no harem, but you still get a lovely spot on the Bosphorus and you don't have to be in a bag to see it:

Our last stop among the tourist attractions was to the Basilica Cistern - an eerie remnant of Roman times. Why you would want a bunch o Corinthian columns mixed up in your water supply is beyond me, but don't say the Romans didn't know how to build a well.

We'll be back in Istanbul to hit up a few remaining spots. In the meantime I need to tell you about all the stuff we ate, so stay tuned...

xoxo Jessie

Keyboards: the Turkısh edıtıon

2008-12-05T08:58:00.000-08:00

Keys so worn they're no longer legible? I can deal. New placement of old punctuation, I got it. Heck, I'd even gotten used to those keyboards in Athens with no return keys left. But the Turkish keyboard has me beat. There are some new letters (ĞÜŞİÖÇ). But it's only one that's driving me to distraction, the dotless "ı"...

See it there skulking between the "u" and "o"? Now scan down and discern it's partner in crime, the always dotted "i"! I need the former for capitalization and the latter for lower case. Otherwıse İ end up lıke thıs.

And I have no learning curve. A number of my online accounts have now locked me out for trying to sign in as Jessıca (it doesn't help my omni-password has a couple offenders in there as well). It takes me at least two tries just to reach Gmail, the New York Times, and this blog. You are reading a post that has been scanned twice for flubbed usage.

All this is to say, posts may be getting a bit shorter these next few weeks.

That was exhausting.

xoxo Jessıe

p.s. Jor, I hope you know adding the pic was all for you babe;)

You're Welcome

2008-12-05T08:46:00.000-08:00

I relinquish any sense of pride or shame for your amusement. I am a monkey. I mean between the neck pillow and the eye shade my face is scrunched somewhere between an allergic reaction to peanuts and that scene in A Christmas Story.

Once, while trying to teach me how to ski, Courtney told me that "there's no such thing as bad weather, just bad gear." Well we all know that's crap. Nevertheless, I think I may be ready to coin the phrase "there's no such thing as bad bedding, just bad humor." Of course I've never had bed bugs, so perhaps the declaration is a tad naïve.

xoxo Jessie

Santorini

2008-12-02T11:29:00.000-08:00

I knew we should go to Santorini, but only because everyone else did. Our short stay there (little more than a day) certainly exceeded those vague expectations. We found the island practically deserted, which suited us perfectly. We probably would have thought there were even more people there had the other couple in town not chosen to wear matching plaid shirts.

We stayed in Fira, the island's largest town and the only one with year-round businesses. From there we walked north through two more smaller towns enjoying views of the ocean on either side, the cliffs below, and Fira in the distance. Really spectacular stuff.

But our stay day in Santorini was defined less by the picture-postcard scenery than by two stray muts. We've been seeing remarkable numbers of stray dogs and cats in every one of our stops since Dubrovnik, but in Santorini they reached new heights. On our first night in town we were followed for a short period by a scruffy white pup. When we finally decided on a dinner spot she went her own way. But then the next morning we met again! And this time she had a friend - a cute lab mix with a limp. These two followed us as we made our way through the town.

At some point though, and it's hard to pinpoint exactly where, they began to take the lead. The gimp would run ahead, while scruffy stayed back to make sure we didn't miss any turns. At first it was a sort of joke: " ha ha we're following them." But as we did they seemed to lead us from one stunning secluded spot to another, and at some point I really came to believe they were giving us their expert tour, which precipitated the following exchange:

Aaron: Hey, I think if we turn here it will take us to the main road.

Jessie: But they're going straight.

Aaron: Yea but I think we have a better chance of finding food - WAIT A MINUTE are you following the dogs ınstead of me?

Jessie: Well don't you think they're leading us to food anyway- I mean that must be their whole purpose.

Aaron: But I have a map. And opposable thumbs.

Jessie (to dogs): You really don't want to go that way do you? No I didn't think so. You're taking us to food right?

Aaron: You know you're talking to dogs right?!?

Well as it turns out they were not leading us to food, and after a few hours of exploring the island's better vistas we parted ways. However, I'm still convinced they're smarter than they let on because, sure enough, when Aaron and I eventually settled down to some nice juicy gyros our white scruffy friend appeared from nowhere to claim her share.

So a huge thanks to our tour guides, Gimpy:

& Scruffy:

And now, for the obligatory dessert installment, I give you strawberry shortcake:

xoxo Jessie

Rethymno

2008-12-01T09:47:00.001-08:00

We couldn't very well spend all our extra time in Heraklion eating, so for a day we went to the neighboring town of Rethymno. It turned out to be a really lovely spot, made more so by the utter lack of any other tourists. Like Hania, Rethymno had been under the control of both the Venetians and the Turks, and so the old town consısted of the same architectural hodgepodge. An impressive fortress wall, reminscent of Dubrovnik, surrounds the city and made for a nice afternoon stroll.

On top of the old fortress, nestled among the old Venetians ruins was a small Greek Orthodox church. We found it emptying out after it'd evening services, the congregants all carrying bread home with them.

xoxo Jessie

Heraklion - or how we ate two extra days

2008-12-01T09:19:00.000-08:00

Heraklion probably deserves more credit than we gave it. It's home the one of the world's foremost collections of Minoan art, it has a lovely harbor, and some an over-the-top church to lend it cultural charm.

But truth be told, we were not that impressed. At least not until we went looking for dinner.

After a day exploring the nearby sites we went to book our ferry passage out of town only to discover the next ferry had been delayed by bad weather and wouldn't be leaving for a few days. So the search for something to keep us occupied began. Two days later we were sorry to leave...

Our first night we never made it to dinner because on our way to "real" food we found an entire restaurant devoted to chocolate fondue. We ordered a single serving (dark with ganache and hazelnuts) and discovered it came with a table's worth of fruit, waffles, cream puffs, and cookies for dipping. My cup runneth over. Literally.

The delights weren't limited to sweets. Among other things we enjoyed Manouri cheese, grilled and then bruleed with balsamic and honey, beet salad with fresh yogurt, and meatballs in raki sauce. And then there was the baklavas. Let me just leave you wıth these:

Yea. Amazing. And now I don't fit in my pants.

xoxo Jessie

Knossos

2008-11-30T08:36:00.000-08:00

The major archeological site on Crete is the restored Minoan palace complex at Knossos.

The site is only partially reconstructed, leaving something to the imagination. Thanks to the posted explanations, we were often a tad skeptical about the reconstruction's accuracy. Like what exactly do you mean, "this is the central courtyard as Mr. Evans envisioned ıt"?

The most famous attractions are the frescos.

At the accompanying archeological museum in Heraklion my favorıte treasures were these gold pendants in the shape of cows' heads and this ivory bull jumper:

xoxo Jessie

You say Xania, Chania, Hania, & Hanya. I say yes please.

2008-11-28T10:49:00.000-08:00

Our first stop among the Greek islands was at a small town in western Crete called, depending on your preferred translation, Xania, Chania, Hania, or Hanya. Nevertheless, ıt's an extremely charming spot.

We're pretty well into the offseason now, whıch meant we could afford a room wıth a vıew:)

Crete was controlled by the Ventians and the Turks at various times and the town's architecture and planning reflect this history. We spent probably more tıme there than was necessary, fattening up on some of the best meals of the whole trip. Sadly we were scarfing down the food too quickly to photograph it, but the discovery of what real tzatziki should taste like was just one of several gastronomıic epiphanies.

xoxo Jessie

p.s. How do you like my new jacket? Very world-travellery, no?

Greek:

2008-11-20T09:56:00.000-08:00

So in Greek a question is punctuated with a semi-colon and an exclamatory statement gets a colon. This leaves exclamation points available for alternative uses.

I totally want my address to have an exclamation point! OR ... a smiley face ;-)

xoxo Jessie

p.s. Happy Birthday Toph Toph::

Athens - that old pile of rocks

2008-11-20T09:11:00.000-08:00

Athens was worth all the trouble we went to getting here. We found a super cheap room right by the Acropolis and spent our first sunset munching on clementines on a hill overlooking the sights. Fabu:

For 6 euros (the Bruin card triumphs again), we had access to the major ruin sights for four days. The Acropolis (Parthenon, Temple of Athena Nike, Propylaea gates, Erechtheum), the Odeon, the Temple of Olympic Zeus, and the original Olympic stadium were the highlights.

The collections at the National Archeological Museum were the perfect compliment to the ruins themselves. A set of gold ceremonial cups was a favorite and made me excited to see the Minoan ruins in Crete where they were found.

I vaguely remember a story of my dad's from his time spent on a dig in the holy land - archeologists overseeing the site were only interested in artifacts from biblical times, practically discarding Roman and other eras' remains. I found myself taking a similar attitude - scoffing at the relatively indelicate pedestal of Agrippa in comparison to the Parthenon, and ditching the city's neoclassical monuments altogether. Like, better be born before Christ or I'm not interested:o)

One non-ancient sight well worth catching was the weekly changing of the parliamentary guard. To wit:

I'm not going to be able to do the scene justice, but you have to imagine these guys swinging their non-bayonet-clad arms above their heads between jutting stomps. And in this get-up:

Apparently, the costume is that of the mountain forces that fought for Greece's independence. Kind of lightens the image usually evoked by the concept of guerrilla warfare, eh?

Of course no post about Athens would be complete without a mention of the parking situation. Man am I glad I'm not driving here. When you can't find a spot on the street, try the island in the intersection (giving new meaning to the tradition of Greek island hopping - total dad joke I know, but who can resist?). Check out the smart car parked in the middle of the street:

And when that option's not available, just drop your bizarre tail of a parking break down on the sidewalk:

And finally, of course, some food! We love cheese pies, cheese balls, and cheese pastries - sensing a pattern? Apparently the average Greek consumes 25kg of cheese per year. I'm making up for lost time. But the better pictures are not of cheese anything, but of some very Greek looking produce:

Yum.

xoxo Jessie

Update: Thanks to the demands of the Indian consulate we were back in Athens for a day at the end of our tour of Greece. Good thing though because Aaron finally got to see these guys in action (and I got to see them dressed for winter)!

Also we happened upon this scene at the contemporary art museum. It was particularly satisfying to pose for this because earlier I had been scolded for posing for a picture next to a classical marble sculpture. Apparently you can pose with the ancient art only so long as you don't stand behind it. No such limitations when it comes to modern art though:

ttfn

Everything's up to date in ... Sofia

2008-11-16T11:51:00.000-08:00

After our experience with hairstyles in Plovdiv and our guidebook's lukewarm recommendation of Sofia relative to Plovdiv, I went to Sofia with decidedly low expectations. Boy did Sofia deliver. First of all, we stayed in a bizarre room decorated with animal print, Tahitian wood carvings, and lots of mirrors, but equipped with satellite tv, and all for 40 leva a night!

Then, while looking for new headphones, we saw a 16 gb flash drive for the first time and declared Sofia thoroughly modernized. The verdict was confirmed a night later with the best meal of the trip. An honest-to-goodness salad, followed by browned chicken tenders in a honey, orange, and rosemary sauce with grilled zucchini in a Roquefort-based cream sauce. Cost, including fresh peach juice: 10 leva. Aaron ate more traditional fair - potato soup and wine-soaked veal with local beer - for even less.

Not everything was so thoroughly advanced. Aaron had read that the per-capita income in Bulgaria was 150 Euros per month, a staggeringly low sum and impossible seeming in the city center where residents wore designer clothes and drove luxury automobiles (we heard that the police drove confiscated Porches but we never saw them). On our way out of town we had a sobering realization when we saw the city's slums. Built within the city garbage dumps, and populated with large families, this housing made other most dire areas I've seen on Skid Row and in Cambodia and Peru seem relatively hospitable.

We didn't do a lot of traditional sight-seeing in Sofia, so instead you get pictures of random things I noticed just walking around. First, really nice terra cotta tile work at the bath house:

Also , these basement-level tobacco and convenience shops:

Bulgaria is predominantly Greek Orthodox, which provided a change of pace, architecturally and culturally:

Finally, there was a significant language barrier. Bulgarians use a Cyrillic alphabet, they do not speak English, and they shake their heads from side to side when we would nod and vice versa. So we were lost a fair bit, but signs like these made up for it:

Chinese style Cyrillic - it never would have occurred to me!

xoxo Jessie

Plovidv: Fashion's Bermuda triangle

2008-11-16T11:30:00.000-08:00

I arrived in Plovdiv with a nasty head cold. Though I did make it out of our guest room occasionally it was never for very long and my memories are vague at best. I know our neighborhood in the Old Town was quaint:

I know the food was delicious and unbelievably cheap (5 leva, or about $2 for this assortment):

And I know the hair was fug.

No joke, I saw a woman with multi-colored extensions AND crimped bangs wearing white leather boots and leggings! You know Bulgaria tried to join the USSR and was turned away. I'm thinking I know why...

xoxo Jessie

A Rude Awakening

2008-11-16T11:00:00.000-08:00

So I've been battling Google for a while now. First, Google Maps didn't have any coverage in Sarajevo. Next, Google Maps lead us on a two-day-long wild goose chase around Athens in search of addresses that were no where near where the application placed them. Now Blogger won't allow me to post text with an embedded map. So my snarky explanation of "The Odyssey" just disappeared into cyberspace. I feel like I've been pulled from my cozy corner of the Matrix into a cold and inhospitable world in which Google is not infallible, efficient, and the embodiment of all that is right, but just another website in need of an update. Oh cruel world!

So, as the previous post was meant to indicate, we were forced to take a circuitous route from Croatia to Greece despite their geographic proximity. There are no direct flights from Croatia or Bosnia to Athens. Apparently for security reasons, there are no trains or buses through Albania (there's a saying in the Balkans: "Come visit Albania, your car is already here!"), Macedonia, or Kosovo. What's more the friction between the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republik of Srpska runs so high you can't travel directly through all of Bosnia, but have to go through Croatia in order to get from one side of the country to the other. Oh and there is no train service in and out of Dubrovnik.

So in order to get from Dubrovnik to Athens we took a five hour bus ride to Sarajevo where we caught an eight hour long overnight train (through Croatia and then Srpska) to Belgrade. There we caught another train for the thirteen hour long trip to Sofia.

Travel time so far: 26 hours. And it seemed a lot longer because we spent the trip from Sarajevo to Belgrade in an ash tray of a compartment with a grumpy old Serbian who chose, instead of sleeping, to explain how all members of the former Yugoslavia are really Serbian and how Bill Clinton ruined his country by "intervening." Awesome.

From Sofia we took a commuter train to Plovdiv, where we arrived just in time to find a hotel with cable tv and catch the election results live. After a few more days in Bulgaria we caught one more overnight train from Sofia to Athens via Thessaloníki.

So total travel time from Dubrovnik to Athens excluding the detour to Plovdiv: 38 hours!

In the end our time in Bulgaria justified the journey, because there we found some of the strangest sights and best food of the trip.

xoxo Jessie

The Odyssey

2008-11-15T09:24:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Dubrovnik

2008-11-14T11:33:00.000-08:00

The small old town within Dubrovnik's massive white stone walls is graced with the dramatic contrast of blue ocean, steep green hills, and deep red terra cotta tiled roofs.

What's not to like? Well actually the food if you must know, but we'd been eating more than our fair share in Bosnia, so we were due for a little famished beauty.

We stayed in an apartment on the old harbor, just opposite the old town. From there we could climb to the hill overlooking the city (where we're sitting in the first pic) to read and escape the crowds that came in for a few hours each morning from docking cruise ships.

Seriously, when a boat this size deposits its occupants on a city as small as Dubrovnik ... well it didn't take long for us to figure out the port-of-call itinerary and skedaddle out of the city center accordingly.

One particularly nice afternoon was spent walking along the top of the old town's wall.

In the off season there's not much in the way of nightlife, so one night we tried going to a movie. There's only one theater in town, and that theater had a single showing each day of a film called Max Payne. Worst movie ever. No joke. Even now I'm a little furious about it. But it's worth bringing up because this was our first experience outside the ArcLight with assigned seating at a cinema. Of course being self-entitled, freedom-seeking Americans, we completely ignored our tickets and sat in the middle of what passes for a movie theater in Croatia, but would look more like a middle school auditorium to anyone from the States. Oh the mayhem. Good thing we don't speak a word of Croatian or we might have felt compelled to move :0)

xoxo Jessie

Tripnip

2008-11-12T11:19:00.000-08:00

After more than a month on the road it was time for a trim. This was Aaron's first professional haircut in more than four years!

xoxo Jessie

Do you know what that is?

2008-11-12T11:16:00.000-08:00

That's a man crossing the street against the light!! We've been the only jaywalkers around for way too long. So thank you, sir for bucking the trend.

xoxo Jessie

I left my heart in Sarajevo

2008-11-12T10:32:00.000-08:00

I was hesitant to travel to Sarajevo, not just because the book warned of stray land mines, but because the only thing I really knew about Sarajevo was that it was perennially war-torn and that I wouldn't be comfortable journeying there just to see what that meant. There was certainly plenty of evidence of the three solid years of Serbian bombing sustained in the mid-90s to justify my initial misgivings, and I didn't take a single picture my first day in town. There are still bombed out buildings,

Sincere requests that you leave your automatic weapons at home when you enter a mosque,

And Muslim graveyards full of those killed between 1992 and 1995, throughout the city.

But after eating some really good cheap food and meeting some incredibly sweet locals I was at ease. Some instant favorites were burek (meat or cheese filled pastry with yogurt) and cevapcici (sausages with kymak cheese and ajvar pepper sauce):

Sarajevo is famous for its sweets. We made multiple return trips to Eqipat for marzipan and baklava.

We stayed in an apartment across the street from this 5th Century church with a sweet elderly lady excitedly preparing for her first hajj to Mecca.

Another favorite sight was the men who played a giant game of chess in the main square. It appears they play all day, every day, and those not actually in the match are consumed with commentary and guidance.

Equally amusing was this cafe:

In the end Sarajevo was interesting, cheap, yummy, and beautiful. We'll be searching for burek and cevapci stateside.

xoxo Jessie

Bet you can't say Ljubljana ten times fast

2008-11-12T10:12:00.000-08:00

We stopped in Slovenia's capital city, Ljubljana, on our way from Croatia to Bosnia. While there I caught my first view of a marathon finish line. I'm not sure what it's like in New York or Boston, but in Ljubljana everyone's a familiar face, and the whole the crowd knows each person crossing the finish line personally. It made for a fun time. I'm pretty sure I'll never run a marathon, but I'm now at least interested in scoping out the finish lines. The city's primary claims to fame involve its bridges. This "dragon bridge" became so closely associated with the city that dragons in general are now Ljubljana's mascot. And yes that's a castle in the background:)

This last picture isn't the clearest shot of Ljubljana's "three bridges," which is really one bridge with three diverging walkways, but Aaron looks cute, so whatevs.

xoxo Jessie

Poreč & Rovinj

2008-11-12T09:32:00.000-08:00

First, Aaron suggested I call this Cruis'n the Croatian Coast - just thought you should know. Second, in Croatian, as in all the dialects spoken in the former Yugoslavia, the letter "j" is pronounced like the letter "y" is pronounced in English. So Rovinj as really Rovinny, and Jessie is really Yessie. I was Yessie in seven years' worth of Latin class - hated every minute (the Yessie not the Latin). It was worth it though because at least once Katie D. tried to see if Magistra's bun was a fake by firing rubber bands at her head. Poor Magistra. She was everything you could ever hope for in a middle school Latin instructor: endlessly patient, always more enthusiastic than my powers of translation warranted, and an ever present cheerleader at my bi-annual ballet recitals. And this is what she gets. But I digress.

Besides the typical white-stone pedestrian-only streets, Poreč boasts a gold-mosaicked Byzantine basilica. Poreč is also notable because while there we searched for and eventually found a recommended pizzeria named Nono, and at least once a week ever after Aaron adopts a cheesy Italian accent to point to an imagined pizzzeria and say, "That's a Nono!" Whaddya gonna do?

Rovinj is a slightly larger coastal town, where we enjoyed another sunny day by the water, hiking up winding cobbled paths to the church and sampling Istria's famous truffles :)

Well in the immortal words of Meg Ryan, "Beautiful, gorgeous, wish you were here...."

xoxo Jessie

Venezia!

2008-11-11T00:44:00.000-08:00

Nothing I'm going to say here will really do Venice or our perfect day there real justice. Even in October spots like Rialto and San Marco were swarming, but just a few blocks into the maze of canals and we were on our own with glorious weather, delicious pizza, and a day free to wander.

Though we spent most of the day in these side streets, no blog post of mine would be complete without the other highlights. First the major landmarks, the basilica and famous shops at the Piazza San Marco:

This pair:

And last, but never least, dessert:

xoxo Jessie

Tidings

2008-11-09T05:46:00.000-08:00

So Tripnic is behind still, though I'm getting within striking distance of reality. It's worth breaking the continuity though to comment on a few significant events in the past days. First, we were thrilled to watch the BBC report the results of the presidential election as they were announced in what were the early morning hours of November 5, 2008, in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. We fell asleep happy with news of mid- and south- western electoral wins and overwhelming turnout across the nation. In the morning though we finally got to a computer and to the news that Proposition 8 would pass in California. Now, a week later, the election results have been rendered still more bittersweet by the passing of Aaron's dear friend Phil. Aaron will be in New York this weekend for those of you also there.

On a far happier note, today is my uncle Tom's birthday. Happy six oh!!!

xoxo Jessie

Trieste

2008-11-09T05:11:00.000-08:00

We spent one day walking around Trieste. We drank good coffee (yes I'm drinking espressos regularly now, and almost admitting I enjoy them), saw the roman ruins and medieval castle, and generally enjoyed the city's winding hillside alleyways and the grander sights along the harbor.

Also, we got to enjoy the practical joke that is Italian automotive engineering:

xoxo Jessie

Istria

2008-11-09T04:48:00.000-08:00

We rented a car in order to see the Istrian coast. I drove a diesel-powered, manual transmission, Skoda hatchback through Croatia, Slovenia, and Italy. This in and of itself brought many adventures. First I had to find reverse. Then the klutch. Next came conversions metween miles per hour and kilometers per hour. Don't forget toll roads and choosing among the four different kinds of diesel fuel (no, I did not repeat any part of the Peage to those Kornbergs following at home). Last but not least, the traffic signs. For example, the speed limit on the freeway is 130 km/h, but only slower speeds are ever marked (so a belated apology to all those people trying to pass me that first night when I thought the speed limit was 100 km/h because that was the reduced speed on the onramp...). This sign means you have left the thing that's crossed out (in this case a coastal town in both Italian and Croatian).
This is just a basic warning sign, but it was used frequently and inexplicably. In this case it's warning of an upcoming bridge over a river, but in many cases it appeared by itself on an otherwise unchanging roadway.

I always did the sign justice but freaking out, slowing down, and creating a traffic situation worthy of the sign. I think between now and the next car rental Aaron may take it upon himself to learn how to drive stick.

xoxo Jessie

WTF?!?

2008-11-09T04:25:00.001-08:00

One of the strangest things we've seen are what appear to be quite unabashed depictions of African slaves. They were most prominent in Austria, but we continue to come upon them in many former Austro-Hungarian territories. They defy any real explanation. First, an example from Prague:
And two more from Venice:

Retired

2008-11-02T10:42:00.000-08:00

And so we say farewell to these old friends (Puma, California style circa 2002). And welcome in their place a comfy pair of brown Asics, on sale in Trieste. Aaron says he never wants to see them again, but thanks to Tripnic, they live on eternally.

xoxo Jessie

Update: To clarify, these were mine. Aaron wouldn't be caught dead touching them.

Maribor, or how we owe the Toplaks

2008-11-01T09:56:00.000-07:00

In Slovenia we were the guests of Jurij Toplak and his family. Consequently, what had been envisioned as a two or three day visit, morphed into a week-long shmooz. We met the Toplaks in Maribor. From there Jurij showed us his family's vineyards in Ptuj.

Here we (Jurij and I that is) are in Jurij's cousin Marko's cellars trying, among others, an Italian Traminec, which I drank a wee bit too much of...

Jurij also took us up Maribor's ski lift (Maribor annually hosts World Cup skiing), which is outfitted with literally the oldest/sketchiest gondolas I've ever seen:)

On our last day in town Aaron and I hiked up these vineyards on the outskirts of town to a small chapel. We passed a high school gym class on the trail. What a life!

Jurij was unendingly patient with our foreign curiosity, explaining not just the legal system (he is a professor of constitutional law), but everything from why Albanians man the gelato stands, to how the transition from communism to capitalism has taken shape. Speaking of those Albanian gelaterias, in Slovenia we discovered a particularly valuable recipe: gelato (chocolate, hazelnut, vanilla - take your pick) mixed with crushed Ferrero Rocher. It's delicious and it's coming home to America with us.

xoxo Jessie

p.s. Aaron has requested photo credits. I don't know why I'm obliging the request, but (as Debs would say) F your I, Aaron took all the pictures in this post because my flash drive is on the fritz and I couldn't access mine.

You know you're totally adjusted to your perma-vacation when ...

2008-11-01T09:37:00.000-07:00

You sit for an hour in an empty train wondering why it's running so late because you had no idea daylight savings turned clocks back a week ago.

You realize it's Halloween, not when you write 31.10.2008 on the hostel registry, not when you check in for your bus, and not when you inspect your dated stamp at the Croatian border, but when the third consecutive group of witch-hat-clad teenagers passes you on the street.

When you literally squeal with joy at the sight of a shower head with a wall attachment (as in, I can wash my hair with two hands!). Well maybe that's the sign I'm not really so adjusted afterall.

xoxo Jessie

Estergom, shmestergom

2008-10-29T09:02:00.000-07:00

Our only day trip from Budapest was to Estergom, a Danube bend town billed as one of the 1,000 things to see before we die. Well, I would beg to differ, especially after two weeks in Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia, which don't have a single sight that makes the cut. Still though, the countryside is not without it's charms.

And check out the local characters:

xoxo Jessie