Magic Show

The hotel in Matheran was very family-oriented and consequently had a schedule of fun events for every day. Since dinner was served super late, we decided to check out the magic show in order to keep ourselves awake until we could eat. The show was in Hindi, clearly, but I assumed the tricks would translate. However there were a lot of jokes between tricks which were lost on us entirely. I did learn that “abracadabra” in Hindi (at least in this show) was “poo poo”. The magician was really into audience participation which included Noah who he often asked things of (in Hindi). The first couple we could figure out, like “touch this handkerchief and nod in agreement that the ring is still under it” or “nod vigorously in agreement that this knot is tight” but it got a little more complicated from there.  The total failure was when he asked “name a flower”—there was no way we were getting that from context. Thankfully the guy next to us whispered a translation. Poo poo!

Continental food

We were the only foreign tourists at the hotel which was otherwise populated by families from Mumbai. They tried really hard to make us feel really welcome, or me rather because people seemed to think Noah was Indian. All our meals were included in the price of lodging so we were well fed. The first night, they set up this amazing Indian buffet which I was excited to dig into but as I was getting my plate the head waiter informed me that they had prepared for me a special Continental meal. I think they assumed the continent I was from was Europe, but no matter.  He presented a “lasagna”. Take a second and imagine the key features of lasagna… pasta? Tomato sauce? Layers? Rectangular? It was none of these things. It was a bowl of vegetable stew with a weird bread crust on top. And it was made especially for me!  Joy.

Points

So the big thing to do in Matheran, aside from buying leather sandals, is to go visit all the sight-seeing points. Armed with a map Noah and I hit a fair number of them.  The hikes were fun, but for the one we always heard as “garbage point” it was a little intense. It ended up being a two hour hike and was pretty unpopular (understandably).  On the way back we timed it so it was right after “spider web-making hour” and essentially just walked through spider web upon giant spider web. Not super pleasant. We invented a special hands in front zombie walk so we hit the webs with our hands and not our faces. Anyway, beautiful views and nice walks. The points.

Matheran

We couldn't get tickets all the way back to Mumbai but managed to get two hours outside to Panvel. So I opened trusty guidebook and tried to figure out what might be interesting around there. I came across Matheran, a hill station outside of Neral. We did the beach, so doing the mountains seemed perfect.

Ah to breathe clean air. While it took a lot of 4am local train transfers and a really precarious taxi ride wherein Noah and I both sat in the front seat and the driver shifted between Noah’s spread-eagle legs—Matheran is a bastion of peace.  No cars are allowed up so porters and horses await the decrepit taxis at the entrance. I always feel conflicted about porters, especially having ones that are twice my age and half my height lug my bags for me, but he seemed really eager and I guess it’s good honest work. Noah and I realized that we are too chicken shit to really enjoy riding the horses up. At first I expected some sort of safety lesson or “do’s and don’ts” for the ride but the guy just hoisted me up and that was the end of our communication. I kept worrying that the monkeys would spook the horse and I felt really bad for it every time the wrangler hit him on the haunches.

1AC is the place to be!

Having traveled in 3AC on the way to Goa (link) we were thrilled to get 1AC tickets on the way back to Mumbai.  Here are some features of 1AC:

•   Adequate water bottle holders
•   Two-person compartments
•   Doors that close AND LOCK
•   Both beds can be down and you can still sit up
•   End tables
•   Fans we can control (that don’t just blow dust and mold smell on you)
•  Adequate lighting which we control
•  Hand towels!
•  Freshly laundered sheets (as evidenced by the paper they come in)
•  A Western toilet (albeit one that I would never dream of touching with my bare skin) complete with toilet paper and soap!
•   A full-length mirror (?)

Cows on the Beach

Beaches are great, so why wouldn’t cows like them? I’m not sure why this was so off-putting to me—oh yeah, the cow shit. Nothing worse then a giant cow patty on the beach.  The relative proliferation of cows was another downside of Anjuna but Palolem had them too. At least the ones in Palolem tended to stick to one area of the beach so you knew when to watch where you walked.

My Ayurvedic Head Massage

Another “thing to do” in Palolem is to get a massage. I had a fantastic Thai head massage once and have been chasing that feeling since. I did not find it here. There were a couple movements that were soothing but by and large, I couldn’t wait for it to be done. I’m not sure how professional the lady I got the massage from was or how well it represents “ayurvedic massage’, but the unpleasant maneuvers included 1) eyebrow pinching 2) eyelid massage 3 )hair pulling. The hair pulling was particularly extensive and purposeful. Pretty much the opposite of relaxing.

Activities List

It’s funny in tourist areas how there is just this set list of things that you’re supposed to do. In Palolem this includes 

1) renting a tandem kayak and 

2) taking a boat ride out to first look at dolphins, then go to Butterfly Island and then go to Honeymoon Beach.  

Even if you don’t want to do these things, you pretty much have to because every person you pass offers them to you and eventually you need to be able to say “already did it, thanks”.  But renting tandem kayaks is sort of awesome, so no problems there. And while seeing an occasional dolphin fin isn’t that exciting to me, and Butterfly Island only actually has butterflies at a different time of year, and at high tide Honeymoon Beach is basically just a rock--- going on a boat ride is always nice.

Palolem

Now this is where you want to be! The beach was quiet and peaceful and clean. The sand was white, the water was shallow, warm and had gentle waves that just folded over. The palm trees poked out above every roof. This beach was lined with little clusters of bungalows and open-air restaurants. While each restaurant had the same crazy menu of Indian, Mexican, Israeli, and Chinese food, they also had beach-facing chairs in the shade that caught the warm breeze. Not too shabby.

There was of course the hustle of bungalow selection. As our taxi turned into the road leading to Palolem a man on bike rode up next to us and handed us a business card for his bungalows. By the time the taxi stopped there was a swarm of touts trying to bring us to their bungalows.  We agreed to look at each person’s bungalows and then make a choice which worked surprisingly well.  In all, we viewed 8 different bungalows which allowed us to get a sense of what types of amenities you can get for $12 a night. We picked a bungalow that had a hammock out front and was set a little back from the beach in a quiet palm tree cove. Weirdly though they were BYOTP (and TP costs a whopping 12 cents a roll) and the owner tried to sell Noah drugs.  After the first night of mosquito attacks, we switched to a beach front bungalow with a thick mattress and a lovely mosquito net.

On the last day we finally hit our perfect stride. We woke up, went on a jog down the beach, stopped at a vendor for a samosa and chai snack, took showers, ate a potato bhaji breakfast, went for a dip before the sun got too intense, ate fish in a beach-facing restaurant, drank fresh squeezed lime juice in seltzer, read on our bungalow porch, went kayaking, strolled out to the far end for sunset, and then ate an Indian supper after the sun went down.

Anjuna

There are a lot of beaches in Goa, each with its own personality. Since we hadn’t really planned our trip, we went with the tried and true “do what everyone else is doing”. We didn’t add into the calculations that everyone else was 20 years old. This brought us to Anjuna beach, known for its rave scene. The beach was littered with beer bottles and was rocky and dirty.  It took us all of 12 hours to decide it was not where we wanted to be and then jumped in a taxi to head to the Southern beaches.

3AC

So the long distance trains come in a variety of classes. Apparently different lines operate a bit differently but on the train we were on there was 1AC, 2AC, 3AC, and 2^nd class. 1AC had just two berths in a private cabin with a door that locks. 2AC had four berths and curtains. 3AC had six births and was wide open. I didn’t venture into 2^nd class but the lack of the letters “AC” afterward makes me pretty sure it was a sweaty, smelly, hell hole.

Our first long train ride was in 3AC because that was the only ticket available. It was a Tourist Quota ticket so our area was filled with other foreigners, who happened to all be American. The awkward thing about 3AC is that it requires coordination with strangers. If everyone has their bed down, then everyone can lay down, but no one can sit up, eat, or really even turn over. So to sit up or eat, someone has to put their bed away and then share with whoever is below them. Awkwardly Noah and I were both on the top bunks so we couldn’t even see the people below us well.

There are traveling food vendors that run down the aisles advertising their wares. At some point I was desperate for a Samosa and went on a Samosa Stakeout. This was necessary because the Samosa man was like a jet. He got by so fast I could never flag him down. By the time I heard the word “Samosa” he was already two cars away. He also came at weird intervals. And being on the top bunk wasn’t an advantage. I eventually had to just lean my head off the bunk and stare at the corridor and wave down anyone who went by and then disappointingly dismiss the water guy, the dosa guy, the pakora guy, or the “weird vat of noodles” guy.

Commuter Friends

One thing that struck me about India was that in general, commuters were really helpful (this does not apply to anyone at the airport). Yes when it came to directions they were often wrong with the information they gave, but they were happy to give it. And importantly, people gave information for free. There wasn’t the constant “I’ll help you but then you need to pay me” attitude you find in some other countries. We even found some people being really concerned for us. On our stint in 2^nd class at rush hour a couple found a way to squeeze me through the crowd to a seat so I wouldn’t get trampled. At a station kiosk a man warned Noah to hide his metal water bottle because “the public will take it!” A man on the train warned me to put away my camera when we came to stops because someone could reach in the window and grab it and run off. Thanks commuter friends!

Tourist Quota Tickets

Some people plan their vacations far in advance and know where they’re going when. We aren’t those people. I like the idea of being flexible and sticking around a place we fancy and ditching a place that rubs us wrong. Only problem is there are 1.2 BILLION people in India and a lot of them like to ride trains. So it quickly became clear that booking a last minute long haul train ride wasn’t going to be easy.

Thankfully there are tourist quota tickets. At some point, someone must have figured out that it is bad for tourism if tourists can never get anywhere because all the trains are booked 90 days in advance by local people in the know. Enter Tourist Quota Tickets. It is unclear to me how many of these exist, for which trains, and which compartments. All I know is that if you want in a special tourist quota line and give a request for where you’d like to go, when, and by what class, a guy behind the counter can usually find you something that meets only the first criterion but is better than nothing. We were hoping for 1^st class tickets on Thursday to Goa. We got third class tickets to Goa on Friday. Close enough.

Horn Ok Please

On our first Tuk Tuk ride I kept seeing this phrase on the back of vehicles.

What does this mean? This is not English as I know it. Are they saying “Use your horn, okay? Please??” or “Stop honking your horn please, okay?” Why are cars instructing other cars on horn usage?

By the end of the trip we determined that this was a request to use your horn (which is weird for us living in a city where there are signs posted everyone with fines for using your horn). We observed that it was mostly slow moving vehicles, Tuk Tuks and trucks, that had this message and we hypothesized that it is a request to faster vehicles to give a little honk if they were going to try to pass them. This actually came in very useful when we were in those faster vehicles, recklessly passing the slower guys. So I’m totally okay with horns, please.

Masters of the Mumbai Commuter Trains

We had many run-ins with the Mumbai Commuter Trains to the point where we actually rode every line and passed almost all of the stops, mostly on purpose. By the end we were experts and had learned some really important lessons:

•   Do not get on a train until you have separately confirmed from three different people on the platform that the train is going where you want to go. Some people may lie to get rid of you, some may not know but venture a guess, some might be crazy; but if there are three people in agreement, you can feel pretty good about it.
•  If you ask the same station manager how to get to the same place twice, with a ten minute interval, he may tell you totally different things.
• Take a picture of the station map because if you don’t follow stop by stop you may never know when to get off. Station announcements are sporadic, at some stations you don’t stop long enough to be able to find a read a sign, and some signs are only in Hindi.
•  Neral and Narul are both stops and pronounced by silly Americans sound the same. Also, Narul is a really common stop everyone thinks you want to go to, Neral- not so much. The trick is saying “Neral” and pronouncing it like “neerle” with the accent on the first syllable and then saying “not Nerul” and pronouncing it “Neerooool” with the accent on the second syllable. Then you have to say “not on the way to CST, on the way to Karjat” and eventually you can get someone to understand where you are trying go. Whether they know how to get you there is another story. Spelling out the destination is useless.  It took us a full hour of scrambling at a station to learn this lesson. May it come in handy to someone, someday.
• If it is rush hour spend the extra dollar and get a 1^st class ticket. While the only structural difference is padding on the bench, the fact that you won’t get trampled to death is a pretty good benefit.

Beginners of the Mumbai Commuter Trains

Our first India adventure was getting from our hotel near the airport to Mumbai proper. The front desk insisted that Tuk Tuk* to Commuter Train was the way to go.  The Tuk Tuk part was easy- just get in the three wheeled vehicle and pray that a larger vehicle doesn’t crush it. The commuter train part was a little more difficult.

Before leaving the hotel I did my due diligence- I asked if it was easy to get tickets, if we got them in advance or on board, how frequently the trains ran, if we should get 1^st or 2^nd class tickets, and where the platform was. To the last question, the guy responded “Platform 689”. Didn’t strike me as weird at the time.

We successfully got tickets, then it was just a matter of finding our train. Here’s what we were up against:

So having the info in English is only helpful if the categories are also in English. Which of those numbers was the track?

Once we figured out it was platform 6, we encountered the next problem—where is platform 6?

Now the way we found platform 6 involved lots of aimless wandering and asking people who lead us in many different directions, but the answer is that platform 6 is under construction and you can’t access it unless you walk a quarter mile down the tracks to the point where it starts. I’m not sure how long it’s been under construction but clearly long enough that they don’t bother to list it on the signs.

So it turns out (I realized hours later) that when the guy said “Platform 689” what he meant was “Platform 6, which is hidden and unlabeled but you can find it by going to platforms 8 or 9”.

*yes, they called them Tuk Tuk's even though that's the Thai word for them meaning "cheap cheap". Apparently this isn't an India-wide thing bc my friend who frequents Delhi thought it was hilarious.

International Dialing Dilemma

One problem I had contacting the hotel that was supposed to pick me up was the same problem I have everywhere—the international dialing dilemma. Everyone gives you phone numbers with the country code which is super annoying if you think you are trying to make a local call to that number.  Basically anytime you see a number that starts with + it means that you can never figure out how to call it locally. Some country codes are two digits, some are three. For some to dial locally you have to add a zero, for others you have to subtract the first digit. You can try every permutation (as I did) but really showing someone else the number and having them dial it is your only shot. And then they inevitably look at you like you’re stupid.

The Meet Up

So as mentioned, Noah and I took different flights.  Mine arrived at 2am, his at 6am. Not ideal. 

My biggest fear was that we were not going to be able to find each other- someone’s flight would get canceled, one of us would have to make a last minute hotel switch. Yikes!

We decided to meet at a hotel and chose one based on (price obvi) its proximity and free airport pick up (which were really the only things it had going for it) but the latter of the two didn’t work so well.

When we booked the hotel, we received a confirmation email with instructions for the airport pick up. They were quite explicit—do not go home with anyone who says they’re from the hotel if they don’t have your name written down, they will take you to another hotel and get a commission; if you arrive and can’t find the hotel pick-up guy, call this number but don’t let anyone else dial it because they will call someone else and pretend that our hotel is closed and take you to another hotel and get a commission. It went on…

I got off the plane, exhausted, cleared customs without incident, and then walked through this weird long hallway where one side is entirely floor to ceiling windows with lots of eager families awaiting their loved ones with their noses squished up against the glass. I felt like I was a fish in an aquarium. I successfully found the ATM and headed out to the mass of people holding up signs with people’s names on them. Alas, none of them was mine.

So I was ready for some trickery and of course, the guy wasn’t there to pick me up. Now locating a phone was quite a process but eventually I came across this:

Ah the payphone.

I know it sucks to compare countries but I’m going to. In Mali, getting off the airplane at 3am is also a trial (though I now never expect the airport pick up to come through) but mostly because everyone is busy trying to be so helpful. People want to help you buy a local SIM card, offer you their services as a guide, help you find a taxi, or just ask you about what life in your country is like.  Helpful is not how I would describe the folks hanging out outside the airport in Mumbai.  Especially not my friend running the phone booth. Getting him to pull off his earphones to listen to my question was a hassle—each of the three times it happened.  He was pretty uninterested in if I ever successfully made my phone call and paid him. It was a solid ten minutes of trying before he decided to get involved.

Pick-up dude showed up an hour late, but without a car. So he just kept me company for another half hour until the car came as well.  Not a great start.

I was a little concerned that the same scene was going to play out for Noah so I told the hotel that I’d accompany the guy to pick him up (after all, I know what he looks like so that should speed things along, also I could be sure that we went on time and to the right terminal).  So I took a power nap on the less then clean bed (see allersac) and the front desk called me at 5:30 to go pick him up. They handed me a smashed cell phone with two phone numbers programmed in- the driver and the front desk- and sent me on my way with a driver who spoke no English but thankfully (and randomly) spoke some Arabic so we got by.

 I found Noah no problem. First mission accomplished.

The world wanted us to go on vacation

The lead up wasn’t great- I got the flu a few days before we were going to leave, then Hurricane Sandy swung through and did her thing (which included flooding airports). I obsessively checked my flights status but miraculously it kept saying “on time”. The same was true for Noah. Convincing a car service to drive me to the airport was the next challenge. I couldn’t even get through to a dispatcher on first and second choice car services. I had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find one and the first car they sent refused to take me to Newark bc he thought I was going to JFK. Of course I left millions of hours early anticipating all manner of disaster but when a car willing to drive me actually showed up, we made record time to Newark.  Then the line at check in and security was shorter than I’ve ever seen it in my life. I got to my gate with 5 HOURS to spare.

Here’s why:

Yup- my flight was basically the only one leaving the airport. What’s better, Noah was leaving on a different airline from a different airport. JFK cancelled all its flights on Tuesday but Noah’s flight left at 12:15 on Wednesday- he made the cut off by 15 minutes and his flight took off too.

The world wanted us to go on vacation.

Vacay!

India is one of the major places I want to visit in my lifetime so I bought the giant Lonely Planet, read it cover-to-cover, and then realized I needed to be there for 6 months to do the place any justice. I only had two weeks so instead of “doing India” I just did Mumbai and its environs. Sorry Delhi, Rajastan, Darjeeling, Chennai, Kolkota—I’ll come back for you someday.

So why Mumbai?  Well for starters the tickets were really cheap via frequent flyer miles (even if Noah and I had to take different flights and meet upon arrival). Also, given the time of year, the South of India seemed like a good bet weather-wise. And yes it’s sort of a cop out to go to a culturally rich place and then bum around on the beach but whatever—I wanted to hang out in Goa.

Now the planning of this trip suffered severely by the fact that I had to go to Uganda and Myanmar twice in the months before, and then had a month of weird little business trips that took me to Liverpool, Ann Arbor, Atlanta, DC and St. Paul.  It didn’t leave a lot of time for doing things like “making hotel and train reservations”.  So flying by the seat of our pants was our strategy.  The idea was vaguely “land in Mumbai, go South”.  I had dreams of making it as far as Kerala, but those were abandoned pretty quickly when I remembered how exhausting travel days are and didn’t want to spend 40 hours on a train both ways.

For future India travelers, if you want to go to specific places on a specific schedule, it behooves you to buy your tickets in advance. We did a version of travel called “we’ll go wherever there are available tickets”. It worked out pretty well for us and forced us to explore parts of the country we hadn’t considered, itinerary-by-chance ended up being a decent strategy.

Playlist of my life

The Bossanova version of the playlist of my life is playing in this coffee shop. Lady Gaga "Bad Romance" and "Poker Face", Madonna "Like a Virgin" and "Like a Prayer", Michael Jackson’s "Beat It", and then whoever sings “I wanna be a millionaire” “nothing on you” “suicidal” and “shorty got it burning on the dance floor”. Remember, bossa nova versions here- so soothing and soft.

I asked the waitress if it was the radio or a CD and she said the radio which meant she didn’t know what I was asking. Then I asked a waiter and told him I liked the music so he pulled out the CD and wrote down the name for me : Dance Bossa Chill. Unfortunately it does not seem to exist on the world wide web. I looked immediately.

The best part of this is that I went to this coffee shop every day of my trip and each time they put in this CD shortly after I walked in.  Sweet.

Power Struggle

I am in a literal power struggle with my hotel. Every time I leave the room I turn off the AC and turn off the lights. Every time I return, all the lights are on and the AC is set at 15 degrees. When I first checked in, the tv was on (as if to prove to me it works). This cannot be good for their profits. It does not make me like them more. I don’t feel more at home (at home I ration AC and only use lights in the room I’m in). What is going on here!

I'm disorganized

time to dump the file called "post to blog" that I have had sitting on my desktop for the last two trips...
sorry for the random out-of-orderness and time delay.

The Doha Lounge

Let’s start with how to get to the lounge. This is usually sort of complicated in airports, but not at Doha. They gave everyone color-coded boarding passes. There is no way to be lost in the Qatar airport as you are carrying a boarding card that let’s all the helpers around (and there are zillions) direct you to the right place. These colors even indicate whether or not you are on a short transfer so you can get priority security check in if necessary. Prior to landing, there is an instructional video on the different terminals and how to navigate them.

Walking into the lounge felt like walking into an exclusive club. I felt like I needed a map or a tour before choosing a place to sit down so I could make an optimal decision. I did a quick walk around before settling in a spot and saw all sorts of people in various phases of being pampered or resting. The sleeping chairs were so nice- window facing around the perimeter of the room and surrounded by plants so there is privacy but you’re not sleeping in a weird dark enclosed room with strangers.  There was a game room with PS3s and a nursery for children; prayer rooms and a cloak room. And most of all free internet without stupid passwords!

Boy did I wish I was hungry. I had just been fed on my last flight so unfortunately wasn’t up for trying out all the different beautiful restaurants in the lounge (and me turning down free food is so rare!). I wasn’t totally sure of the protocol but flagged someone down and got a pot of tea to keep me awake until my next flight. So I got at least 50 cents worth of the benefits of being there. 

I'd like to say I will stop raving about Gulf Carriers but I'm taking Emirates for my return flight so I can't promise anything.

Qatar Airways

Sitting in the airport I was almost peeing in my pants with excitement to fly a gulf carrier- pen out, ready to take notes on the luxury.

The Africa Leg

While there were some definite perks this leg didn’t quite live up to my admittedly absurd expectations. Like all airlines, they use their crappier, older airplanes for Africa. They also clearly didn’t send the most motivated crew who seemed to oddly enough be Chinese-Americans. Sorta disappointing on that front. But just knocked my expectations down low enough to be wowed on the next leg.

The Asia Leg

I think heaven is probably a Qatar airways international flight in business (not coming from or going to Africa). I spent the eight hour flight either being in a coma-like sleep or being delighted by every detail that I noticed.

Most notably:

Hot towels: unlike some airlines where they clearly throw these in a microwave two seconds before take off so there are weird hot and cold patches, these towels were literally steaming. They were like a sauna in a washcloth. I couldn’t identify whatever scent they had on them but it was luxurious.

Leather bound menus and fresh flowers in a vase on the wall: Sure, this is totally unnecessary but it does make you feel like you’re in a restaurant instead of on a plane.

Gendered amenity kits: no idea what is in the man’s kit but mine was Salvator Ferragamo and came with hand cream, perfume, and lip balm. A note on hand cream, I don’t really get it. Doesn’t it just make your hands slippery? My friend lectured me that your hands age quickly and that is a spot that indicates your true age. Thing is, I don’t think I have ever noticed a person’s hands (unless they were slippery when shaken). That saying “I know it like the back of my hand” perplexes me because I’m reasonably sure I could never recognize my own hand-backs in a line up. I can’t picture my husband’s hands. Hands just aren’t on my radar (anyone want some fancy hand cream?).

Timing of things: you ordered your meal from the menu before take-off which made the food service portion go much faster. Also they gave you the noise-cancelling head sets immediately so you could pop them on before take-off.

Functional sinks: sinks on airplanes are a pet peeve of mine. The meager stream of water is always too close to the bowl so you end up touching the sides. You have to hold it down with one hand to wash the other. The sink bowls are made for carnies (small hands, smell of cabbage). And there is that mysterious sign that says “as a courtesy to your fellow passengers consider using your towel to wipe the sink”. What are people using these tiny sinks for that the drain can’t handle? Also, what towel? Do you mean the single ply toilet paper or the single ply tissue? Well Qatar airways has fixed the sink. It’s a regular sink-sized sink, this a regular faucet-sized faucet. You can press the red button for hot and the blue button for cold, and then the water flows without you having to hold it down. Also there are ACTUAL TOWELS.

Updates: The plane (to Asia) were newer and hence had little lights that indicated when you could use your cell phone, next to the fasten seat belt sign. There was also a new-addition to the regular lecture which was “no electronic cigarettes are permitted on board”. Wow, maybe that’s a thing here.

Pajamas: They gave me pajamas. And none of this one-size-fits-all bullshit, but the flight attendant came up to me and said “I’ve selected a size medium for you, however let me know if you’d like to change”. They are comfy and made of grey fleece. There were matching socks and an eyeshade all in a little bag. I’m such a sucker for little bags.

Seats: The seats (on the Asia leg, not the Africa one) lay out to 180 degrees and could be adjusted with only three sets if arrow buttons. None of this 15-button monstrosity on some airlines where you can never quite figure it out. Also there was a “save” button so when you’ve found the perfect position and then get up to go to the bathroom, you can get right back to your sweet spot.

Entertainment: So many movies. There were a few new releases, but then also a great selection of foreign films. And they were just the foreign films I wanted to see- not the high-brow, super famous ones I’ll hear about in the US anyway, but the dumb popular ones that I love. The equivalent of “The Vow” (which I’ve seen twice on planes) from each country. I watched a fabulous Egyptian romantic comedy (more later) and a pretty scandalous Bollywood film. Best of all, because we had the headsets on our seats when we arrived, I got through half a movie before we even took off.

$15 and two hours

I finished up my meetings, checked out of my kampala hotel, and had $15 worth of Ugandan shillings left and 2 hours to kill before leaving for my flight. The possibilities were endless. I went on a walk following the directions of the hotel receptionist toward a coffee shop I knew. Her instructions were decidedly wrong, as she told me to just continue straight until I got there when in fact, straight was not an option after about 200m. Anyway, I just wandered a little bit and it started to drizzle. I like a little drizzle, however this was inconceivable to every passing Boda-Boda that pulled over to try to “rescue me”/earn 50 cents for a ride, but those things are risky enough in bright sunshine, let alone rain. Eventually it started to pour so I jumped in a little restaurant and had a delicious chicken sandwich while the city got dumped on. I love finding little spots by chance- especially when I don’t end up with food poisoning afterward. 

Expired Money

My hotel in Mbale, for some reason, only accepted visa cards. That’s a new one. I had an Am Ex and a Mastercard on me. So I ended up having to pay for my week’s stay in cash. That wasn’t a huge deal because at this point, I keep stupid quantities of cash on me for such situations. However, this time when I paid they told me my dollars were expired! They even had the big heads!

The change desk in Kampala told me they’d give me a better rate if I changed a post-2006 bill, which was weird, but whatever. But in Mbale they do not accept pre-2006 bills as legal tender.

This lead to me having to go through my three different money hiding spots in the lobby and looking through all my bills for ones that were post-2006. Not pleasant.

At least now I can feel okay about leaving $1000 in my suitcase when I go out for the day, because apparently all that money is “expired”.

Entebbe Airport

Oh airports. Always something weird. 

There are the usual oddities at the Entebbe Airport- like not being allowed into the departures terminal if you arrive more than three hours before your flight (which those of us who are flight-paranoid and vastly overestimate the effects of traffic on the ride to the airport frequently are). Or having a series of weird 'gates within gates' AKA glass holding chambers where you go through security, wait an undeterminable amount of time, then go through another check to wait in the next one. Third time is the charm, and then you get to walk down a flight of stairs to get to the tarmac. 

But a really perplexing design issues at Entebbe Airport is how the parking lot and drop off area for departures, is two stories below the departures hall and there is no elevator or ramp. So when you get out of the car with all your baggage, you have to contend with two flights of stairs to check in. Thankfully there are some dudes there to help. Now these are either prisoners, or airport employees who wear surplus prison uniforms, but either way, not super confidence inspiring.

I’m currently sitting in the business class lounge which has some fantastic 80’s furniture. Black and tan leather couches in alternating colors with throw pillows.

There is also inexplicably this giant stone sculpture? Decoration? Non-functional fountain? Not sure.

Is peanut butter a liquid?

I bought a jar of peanut butter in Uganda for emergency snacking and left it in my backpack. Now what I learned in science was that a liquid was defined by its ability to flow. Regular old peanut butter does not flow. Security at Uganda disagreed with me but let me keep my peanut butter. Security at Thailand was furious.

Molestation vs Massage

I don’t go through the full-body scanner at security. The choice has something to do with thinking it is pointless, the frequency with which I fly and would be exposed to rays, and a distrust of TSA to properly maintain their machines.

So when you opt out of the machine, it’s a different experience depending on where you are.

In the US, as I’ve written before, you get a narrated molestation detailing every place they touch and what part of their hand they are going to use. 

In Belgium the security agent just said “and now it’s time for your free massage”!

In Thailand, they just let me walk around the machine and bypass the search altogether.

Can’t-wash-your-hands Diet

I’ve been doing a lot of field work lately so the meals are a bit sporadic.

So lunch didn’t happen today and not because I didn’t have food, but because I couldn’t touch anything that would go into my body with my nasty, nasty hands. On a long day in the field, the only thing that can overwhelm your appetite is the thought of exactly how dirty your hands are. How many hands have you shaken? Door knobs have you touched? Snotty children have you picked up?

At home I wash my hands approximately 20 times a day—and not because I have OCD tendencies but rather because I drink an excessive amount of water and am constantly peeing, and then clearly I wash my hands (because I’m not nasty).

Here I quaff much less due to non-potable tap water; also the bathroom experience is much less pleasant. And lastly, who has time for body functions on business trips? Not I, my friends.

A note on hand sanitizer

You want to be able to wash your hands in a subtle way so as not to imply “I think you’re dirty” instead of the true “I’m an epidemiologist and just know too much about disease transmission”. However, hand sanitizer is really smelly so everyone knows you’re using it. Then you have to offer it to everyone and it becomes a novelty to explain. And this whole “my body just isn’t used to the same germs” talk is usually met with suspicion. At best it comes off bizarre, at worst rude. Not worth it, especially since TSA is going to take it away when you mistakenly leave it in your purse.

BFD

Accordingly to the hotel chain I’m staying in, I am a BFD. This is the first time I’m staying with them but I stayed in two different locations this trip for a total of 8 days. 

The first night, no biggie, other then they changed my reservation for me so that my breakfast would be free. 

The second night I was at a different location and they upgraded me to an executive room. Pretty sweet and unexpected, but then again, there weren’t very many people in the hotel so maybe it was just a policy to upgrade if it’s available. 

Last night, I was back at the first hotel, and again they upgraded me, but this time to an executive suite. It was literally larger than my apartment. It had two sofas. It had a desk larger than my office in NYC. The balcony had seating for four. They also gave me a coupon for a free BOTTLE of wine with dinner. Not a glass, a bottle. My “welcome packet” had a personalized letter and a survey where I was asked if there are any rituals I have at home that the hotel might be able to replicate to make my stay more comfortable. “Yes, I like to sleep in a bed for free”. It made me really wish that I had friends in Kampala so I could invite them over to hang out in my giant room and help me drink a bottle of wine.

So all this special attention got me thinking about what between my first and second night got me (erroneously) flagged for VIP treatment? Here’s my list:

-paid with a business AmEx?

-had lots of stamps in my passport?

-good tipping?

-nice luggage? (I LOVE MY EAGLE CREEK BAGS!)

-low probability that I would have a prostitute sex party in their big room?

They did ask me for my business card “to facilitate check in”. So maybe they were sneaky, looked up my company, and decided we are high rollers. Apparently they skipped over that whole “nonprofit” part.

Anyway, it’s cool. I like being treated wonderfully for no reason. It’ll make my upcoming vacation to India more exciting when we stay in 16 person hostel rooms and eat street food J

Weird Face

I would like to learn more about child brain development and when facial recognition stuff starts to happen.  From my observations, babies don’t mind me, 1-3 year olds are terrified of me, and 4+ year olds are thrilled to see me. I wonder if there is some key facial recognition learning going on at that age and seeing my weird-ass face just blows their minds?

Nourishing the Soul

My favorite perk of my job is hanging out in African villages. I just love old African ladies. We have some weird bond and get along smashingly despite no common languages. We mostly hold hands, high five, and hug a lot. It’s pretty wonderful. 

I met an old lady yesterday and we had our little non verbal love fest and then I went to another house for a medical visit. When I came out she had prepared a meal for me and offered me one of the orphans she takes care of. My colleague refused on my behalf, mostly due to time constraints but also recognizing that my system might not do so well with the food but I was sorta sad. I would totally have had a bout of food poisoning in exchange for chilling with my old lady friend for a little while. Demolish the body, nourish the soul.

I then spent the rest of the day observing follow up visits with new moms and holding their three-day old infants. So yeah, good contact across the life span. Who else gets to do this stuff?

Delight

The most delightful part of my week/month (depending on how ambitious or lazy I am) is that moment when I finish one book and get to select which one to start next. Today this happened with this view in the background:

P.S. Yes I eat and read at the same time. Unhealthy I know...

Straight Labels

I appreciate the straight-forward labeling here:

On the left is chocolate that you drink. It's up to you whether you do so hot or cold.

On the right is tea-whitener. No false claims linking this to any sort of dairy product. This is just some powder that is meant to change the color of your tea.

How to eat real animals

While certainly not a rule or coherent philosophy, back home I’m not a huge meat-eater. This has something to do with having a vegan husband in combination with taking too many infectious disease epi classes and reading too many Michael Pollan books.Anyway, so I don’t eat a ton of meat in the US but I certainly have no problem with it in Africa. 

But ordering meat in restaurants is challenging, because wussy me was raised on the boneless skinless chicken breast and the fish filet. I somehow never learned how to politely (or at least non-comically) eat a fish that still has all its bones. I made a mess of my chicken stew tonight because my dear friend chicken was still in possession of every part of itself that it had prior to death, excluding the feathers.

I feel like I’m in need of an etiquette class entitled “how to eat real animals”

P.S. To earlier readers, this version has the poop parts removed for your reading pleasure.

My corn

When eating corn here I choose to imagine that it came from people who spread a tarp out on the ground in their yards in order to dry the kernels:

Instead of those who decide to leave all of their corn directly on the payment to be dried by the exhaust fumes of cars.

Kids

When walking through people’s fields there were bunches of kids yelling “hello” and waving to me. One set of boys yelled “hello” and then continued on to say more words I didn't understand. I asked Fred what they were saying and his response was “they are saying made up words that they think sound like English". This is awesome; the English equivalent of “durka durka”.

I tried to get them doing it on camera but no luck. Instead, they ran out of their corn fort when they got wind of the fact I had a camera. (I typically try to avoid the riot-incitement of whipping out a camera around kids but these kids clearly deserved an exception). We then had a 10 minute photo-shoot.

Sipi Falls

I got a late start to Sipi Falls so the whole adventure revolved around trying to stay ahead of the afternoon downpour. I actually considered aborting once it started to drizzle and we hadn't even started yet, but perseverance paid off. I'm not sure it totally mattered whether it was actively raining or not because the mud looked pretty consistently treacherous. 

My guide, Fred, came with a giant walking stick that I almost turned down—which would have been disastrous. Wedging that thing in any solid spot was the only maneuver that helped me on the descents.

We went on a “medium” hike which included visiting two different falls and took about 2 hours. The beginning involved weaving our way single file down a narrow path through corn fields and people’s backyards.

We crossed a few non-confidence-inspiring but incredibly-photogenic bridges.

We made it under the first set of falls at which point Fred asked "Do you want to get wet” and clearly I responded in the affirmative.

I sorta thought this was it and we were headed back to the car but I was in for the best part yet. This involved going under some barbed wire until we came to the "very large ladder" to take us to the lower falls.

So all in all, a fantastic tourism day. Good exercise, great pix, and if anyone finds themselves in this part of the world, I can give you Fred's cell phone number.

Improper footwear

Adventures in hiking in 10-year-old off-brand sneakers, during the rainy season. And it isn't that I don't own great hiking boots, it's that I never know if I'm going to get a "tourism day" during a business trip and those beasts are too heavy and bulky to bring on the off chance of an opportunity to don them.

I literally took my sneakers off at the hotel entrance, embarrassed by how caked in red mud they were. The receptionist took them from me to clean and I sort of wanted to tell her she can just throw them out...

In retrospect I should have taken a picture to post.

Tourism Day

Tourism Day! These are pretty rare occurrences during business travel as there is always spillover work from the week that needs to done during an always-too-short visit. However my colleagues here are working hours way beyond their contracts so I'm trying to set a good example by not going into the office this weekend. I'm of course secretly answering emails and Skyping with New York from my room, but I also managed to escape the confines of the hotel.

So with a weekend devoid of scheduled activities, off I went to see Sipi Falls. Last time I was here in Mbale I only saw the inside of my hotel room and the inside of my office, so now I can proudly say I saw the big sight in Eastern Uganda.

Indians

So there is something really weird going on between Black Ugandans and Indians here. I've been on the receiving end of statements like "oh, that hotel is not for you, it's for Indians" and "That place is no good, it's Indian!"

So knowing that hypersensitivity to race is not a thing here (as evidenced by everyone calling me Mzungu or "white person" when I walk down the street) I'm curious about where this anti-Indian thing comes from...

Love in an elevator

It just occurred to me that I have never been in an elevator in Uganda. Now this makes sense, since the power outages would make for a terrifying elevator experience. But it also poses a challenge for hotels with six floors and people with heavy bags (ahem). I find the need to make excuses the whole time I follow the porter up the stairs, carrying my massive bag. "It's all work stuff!" "Sorry it's so heavy!" "It'll be lighter on the way down!"

Triple 7

Ugandans speak English, but it is a very special kind of English. Here are my notes:

* When sharing a phone number with repeated consecutive digits, always say "double" or "triple". I got a phone number dictated to me as 0 triple 7 1 double 4 5 triple 8. My brain simply does not process that kind of information

* Visit is a one syllable word, pronounced "Vist"

*People say thank you all the time for things that I don't think deserve thanks. If someone knocks on the door to the office, you can say "thank you" and they come in. A perfectly acceptable response to "how is your day going" is "thank you". Super-polite or lazy?

*Introducing someone as "son of the soil" or "daughter of the soil" never gets old and you can use that monniker for all 20 people in an hour long introduction of everyone present

*You can greet someone an unlimited number of times a day. It's not just the first time you see them that you do the whole "Hello, how are you". You do it every time they enter a room.

More as I notice it...

As promised:

*"Can't" seems to mean "don't want to" "shouldn't" and "won't". Example "Ugandans can't visit Sipi Falls" "Why" "Because they have seen it so many times already" "Is there a limit on how many times you can go?" "It cannot be interesting for us" "Oh"

*"serious" seems to mean "professional" "competent" and "sane" and being called "not serious" is a major insult.

Ebola Gossip

I had a long drive to Mbale from Kampala and got to talking about a great many things with my driver Moses. One of them was Ebola. Right after I left Uganda last time there was an Ebola outbreak that was reported on weirdly in the US and I wanted the inside scoop-- boy did I go to the right place. Apparently Moses is a driver for an agency that was actively involved in the response so he was up to date. Here's what I learned.

Once upon a time there was a man in Kibaale who got in a fight with his wife. He went West to the DRC to find himself a new wife. "I'll show her!" I imagine him saying. He picked up a lovely lady in DRC and brought her back to his family in Kibaale and she started to get really sick. Witchcraft! Everyone assumed the first wife had cast a spell on the second and was making her sick. The police arrested her and threw her in jail. In the mean time, sick new wife infected everyone NOT in jail in the family with Ebola and they all died. And the moral is, don't take a second wife, she could have Ebola. Moral two: there are some upsides to being accused of witchcraft- like unintentional isolation during an epidemic.

Anyway, the less dramatic part of the story involved the death count which was almost entirely from that one family (excepting the first wife) plus two health workers. One of the health workers worked for the organization in Kampala where Moses drives his vehicle. So a colleague of Moses's drove this infected person to Kampala (and that's where the weird headlines about Ebola in the capital came from) but she died before arriving and they did a U-turn and when back to Kibaale--- the hospital wasn't super interested in letting an Ebola-ridden dead body out of the car.

At this point my question was "it wasn't this car, right?". It wasn't. But Moses has had to go back and forth to Kibaale to drive epidemiologists and aid workers who don't want to spend the weekends there.  Super comforting. I made some awkward comment like "well, here's hoping you wash your hands a lot!" and then stopped asking questions.

Big Headed Bills

My dad seemed to think this piece of trivia was worth a post.

When traveling in Africa and parts of Asia, there are a fair number of countries where ATMs either don't exist or aren't reliable and credit cards aren't really a thing either. Enter large sums of cash (I don't even want to hear about travelers checks-- if they still exist, they shouldn't). Sometimes for business trips I have to reimburse people, pay hotel rooms, and even purchase internal flights entirely in cash.

So the thing is, not just any cash will do. In order to be able to change dollars into local currency in banks, at hotels, or even on the black market (how are they allowed to be picky?) the dollars have to have big heads. They have the be the post 1996 bills with the giant presidents' heads in the center. They also cannot have any marks on them, any notable creases, or look like more than 2 people have every touched them. Pristine, mint-condition (literally) bills are the only form of currency in these situations. So I'm the jerk at the bank who asked to withdraw 4000 dollars in cash, and then picks through every one of the bills to check for big heads and then asks for new ones anytime I find those stinking little heads. I try to alternate banks so they don't hate me too violently.

And yes it is terrifying walking around with lots of cash (I pretty much sprint home from the bank, hyper aware of everything in my peripheral vision).


UPDATE: Apparently head-size is insufficient. I was just told at the money changer that I would get a better rate if the big-headed bills were post-2006.

Disco Buddha

Given the thousands and thousands of people at the Shwedagon Pagoda on Buddhist Lent, despite our height advantage, there was the very real possibility that my colleague and I might get separated and never find each other again. My Frye training compelled me to designate an emergency meeting spot and clearly I selected what I like to call "The Disco Buddhas".

Buddhist Lent

This is not the first time that I have meticulously planned a business trip only to learn after arrival that a public holiday falls during my brief stay. Now I'm not dumb, I have every holiday I can think of for the countries I visit entered into my Outlook calendar (Malian Independence Day? Ethiopian New Year?). This helps with scheduling trips, understanding why colleagues are unresponsive, and getting brownie point by sending a holiday greeting. However Lunar Holidays always evade me! 

During my trip to Myanmar, the moon was such that Buddhist Lent fell during our trip. It ended up being fine- we had no meetings previously scheduled, so tourism day it was.

We took advantage of a full hour of sunlight and went to visit the Shwedagon Pagoda. If you're going to visit a giant pagoda, you might as well do it on the same day that the entire country is visiting. 

Navigating the pagoda made me think of swimming in a school of fish. Turning to the left or right wasn't something you got to decide to do on your own, you had to hope for an opportunity. Cutting across the rows of people entailed a fair amount of swimming upstream and then waiting for your chance, crossing, and then swimming back.

Even more fun was that there were almost no tourists. We were swimming in a sea of Burmese grandmas, babies, and entire families on a picnic. 

Where's Laura?

Monsoon Rains

The hours of sunlight I experienced during my one week visit to Myanmar total 3. I am entirely confident in this number because my jetlag was such that I woke up before the sun was presumably rising and fell asleep after it had presumably set. However, I never saw a sunrise or a sunset through the dark monsoon rain clouds.

This was a little disappointing because the big thing to see in Yangon is the Shwedagon Pagoda which apparently is beautiful at sunset. So we waited for a day when there was a sunset to see it, and such a day never arrived (we went on our last day instead).

Every time I left the hotel, I was handed an umbrella. I think there was someone employed by the hotel whose only job was to hand out umbrellas to everyone. I brought a rain coat but it was so humid I couldn't imagine putting anything long sleeved on. So umbrellas it was- everywhere.

The nice thing about a rainy rainy place, is that foot fashion just cannot matter. Everyone must wear flip flops at all times- that is simply the only reasonable option. You are constantly stepping in mud and puddles- so you step in mud and your feet get gross, and then you step in a puddle and they're clean again. No squeaky wet shoes- boots would be filled with sweat moments after putting them on- so flip flops it is.

According to my colleagues, it rains for about 5 months of the year- and the rain is particularly heavy for two months (July-August). Sometimes colleagues in monsoon climates ask me when it rains in the US and I never have an adequate answer. I guess according to poem there are showers in Aprils that bring flowers in May (and then Pilgrims!) but by no stretch of the imagination could we call April a rainy season. It rains in a totally unpredictable fashion in the US. Sometimes I try to explain "maybe it rains on Monday and Thursday but not any other day that week" and that usually doesn't work, and then I try "you have to watch the weather channel every morning to know if it's going to rain or not". Again, not a ton of success. One nice thing about the monsoon rains in Myanmar is that you never have to wonder- it will most certainly rain multiple times every day.

I think that in rainy places, people are much more aware of the skies. It is entirely possible that I am abnormally oblivious to my environment but I almost never know when it's going to rain. However, people in Myanmar seem to get some sort of signal for a five minute warning. Change in wind? Pressure shift? Sky color? I don't know what it is but you really don't see people "caught in the rain without an umbrella".

There was a pool boy at my hotel- and as far as I could tell, his job consisted of sweeping the pool deck and then putting out and removing the lounge chair cushions 100 times a day. If there was a small period of no rain, the cushions all went out, and then magically, 30 seconds before the rain began to fall again, he would put them all back. I started taking my cues for impending downpours from him.

Rain Rain Go Away
Come Again Another Day (season)
(Not so) Little Laura Wants To Play (or just walk in dry shoes)
Rain Rain Go Away

No Motorcycles

Rumor has it that once upon a time a high-ranking official in Yangon was hit by a motorcycle and subsequently outlawed them. Another rumor contends that in a fit of paranoia regarding the ease of attack on caravans via motorcycles, the government outlawed them.  Which ever, if any, is true- one thing is for sure, there are no motorcycles in Yangon.

This may not seem so weird in the US where there are so few motorcycles anyway (possibly owing to our climate and relative wealth). But elsewhere in the developing world, motorcycles are ubiquitous.

I love a motorcycle free city! The pollution seems noticeably less, I don't have to contend with motorcycle taxis for transit (scary!), I don't have to see accidents nearly every day, and it feels safer to cross the street when people aren't zipping between lanes and around vehicles. I could get used to this lovely, if weird, policy.

Ladies or Gents

As is the cutesy custom all over the world,  instead of a sign at my hotel, they have a piece of art to distinguish the men's room from the women's room. Only problem is that it was entirely unclear to me which of these dolls was the man and which was the woman. I stared for an awkward amount of time until a staff person pointed me in the right direction.

On makeup and travel...

On long international flights- the most delightful thing in the world upon take off are those hot towels that get passed around and the best possible thing you can do with them is to rub them all over your face. Perhaps even better is when you're in a hot country and they bring the cool towels- again to be immediately smeared all over your face. These operations cannot be done if you are wearing makeup. I think the airlines frown upon giant black smudges on their warm/cool towels.

Also- you're supposed to look bad, you're on a long international flight-- make up will not fix this.

Rock the skirt

So Myanmar has officially been "opened up" for like 32 seconds and here I am. I made the mistake the first time someone asked me "is this your first time in Myanmar?" admitting that no, I crossed the border from Thailand once to renew my visa. Decidedly not a good thing to share.

Anyway, I'm in Yangon, the capital. Formerly Rangoon, like the crab.

My first and most salient impression is that all the men still wear traditional skirts. I love this. They are called "longyi" which I haven't heard pronounced yet but would like to think sounds like "longy" as opposed to "shorty". These are long, ankle length skirts.

It seems like a pretty practical get-up. One-size-fits-all, tied-around-the-waist long cotton skirts. Businessmen with pressed white collared shirts tucked in to skirts, teenagers in baggy tee-shirts with skirts, soccer players shirtless with a shortened skirt.  This may be one of the last places on earth where Western dress has not taken over (yet).

(wish I could take credit for this picture but haven't taken my camera out yet, thanks google images)

Not Africa

This blog is called Laura in Africa -- some day I will merge this blog with Laura in Thailand Laura in Morocco and Laura in Guyana and just call it "Laura in Places". However, until that time I'm breaking the rules and blogging from Asia.


(while I'm breaking geographic rules, someone just reminded me that once upon a time I guest-blogged on a brilliant friend's blog from Palestine: check it out)

BYOB on a plane

One more thing that fascinates me- preflight announcements on different airlines.  I feel like I've written about this before but my cursory scan didn't locate the post so no link.

The safety messages for airlines should be pretty standard, right? Most airlines are using the same planes, flying to the same places, and are theoretically subject to the same emergency situations.  But it is not so.

European airlines tend to teach about the "Brace Position" for crashing (which according to an infallible source, the Liam Nieson movie where someone gets eaten by a wolf every 2 minutes, bracing before a crash actually just causes your neck to snap).

Brussels Airways added one gem to their pre-flight instructions which was a stern warning that the only booze you're allowed to consume on board is that served to you by your flight attendants.  Is this that big an issue?  People BYOB onto a plane?

Border Border

Well I'll be.  Apparently the Boda Boda (motorcycle taxi) gets its name from its original purpose which was to transport people across the border to Kenya.  So people would stand on the side of the road and wait for a motorcycle to drive by and yell "Border?" to see if they could hitch a ride.  This turned into "border? border?" and was corrupted into Boda Boda which now take you anywhere, not just the border.  Pretty nifty, huh?  Thank you taxi driver Israel for this piece of enlightenment.

I took a Boda Boda again, this time with a friend on the back (somehow I felt safer sandwiched in the middle) while I was carrying a coffee in one hand and groceries in the other (making the ride decidedly less safe).  I learned an important fact, which is that if you accidentally tell them to turn right when you really want them to turn left, you actually have to step off the motorcycle for them to be able to turn around.  U-turns with three passengers, not so much.

Passionately revolting

Today (as in when I wrote this, not the week later when I actually posted it) I learned that when given the choice between Passion Fruit juice and Passionate Fruit juice with sugar, the correct answer is with sugar.

British French conversion

I knew people didn’t actually use those clunky British electrical outlets!

 I learned a trick to get a French plug to fit into the British outlet.  Apparently if you just jam a pen cap in the top hole, you can squeeze the French plug into the bottom holes. It bends the French plug a bit so who knows if it will work in a French outlet afterward but it works in a pinch.

random highlighting

Side note: I have no idea why my blog has randomly highlighted some text in white. It's pretty distracting and certainly unintentional. I'll get to the bottom of it ASAP but in the mean time, ignore it.

Ostrich dance

More aminals

Noah- do not proceed. My overuse of flash and lack of a zoom lens is going to make you cringe.

 I know you're never supposed to do this...

 This is definitely part of the trail

 Is this part of the trail?

 Didn't get this photo at the right moment but it was a donkey passing a monkey, decidedly ON the trail.

 Pumbaa looked better in animation

 Sorta looks like the Bald Eagle, symbol of the US, no?  It's an African Fishing Bird.

 Ugliest stork ever- do ugly storks bring ugly babies?

 One camel on duty, one camel off duty (or possibly dead).

Storks!