double naporization

this is my favorite photo from my trip. lindsay and i happened to be at a meteor-crater lake formed about a million years ago when these boys from the local village decided to kill two birds with one stone, bathing and bringing water home for cooking at once. i snapped it with some sly hand action and am grateful that it came out so beautifully.


i don't know where to begin in explaining my time here in ghana over the past 2 weeks. it's been unreal, enlightening, frustrating, sad, educational and fun.

i'm hoping the photos and my commentary will help tell the story a bit. it's not easy to get photos here, as it is rude to take pictures of people without asking (understandably so) and once you ask the moment is usually gone. this baby was sitting on the sidewalk in town all by herself. i didn't see anyone around. i'm sure her mother was inside, but it struck me as a typical ghanaian moment.

right outside of accra, the capital of ghana, there is a canopy walk, where you can walk high above the rain forest and look down at the trees. lindsay and i had fun jumping up and down on the wooden walkway while holding onto the ropes to test out the guides assertion that it was very sturdy. still, half the people who were there were too scared to walk over. it was pretty high up.

we went shopping in kumasi, the heart of the ashanti region, for some traditional kente cloth. lisa, my roommate from brooklyn, for those poor souls who don't know her, had dropped a hint that she could use some cool fabric from africa. i was happy to go on a mission. i believe lindsay snapped this shot right as i was thinking "you want how much for this?" bargaining here is part of the culture. if you are white, they automatically triple the first offer. it's ridiculous and can be frustrating, but lucky for me, i'm an ace at their game. hold tight lisa; christmas is coming.



my uncle rob used to live here and he recommended that we do some kind of tour to travel around. not being tour type people, we thought we could handle the buses, hotels, daily plans, meals, etc on our own. after 3 days in accra, i realized we were wrong. getting a bus ticket takes about 3 hours. finding a restaurant that isn't out of everything other than some really funky local food with unidentified meat in it can be impossible. airline tickets are impossible if you don't book them ahead of time, so we weren't able to go to mali. i found this out after i spent a whole day and $130 on my visa to mali. $30 of which was a bribe to get it done within the week. bribes are pretty common over here. anyway, we decided to take our wise uncle's advice and go to the travel agency he recommended. they hooked us up with a tour guide, driver and mercedes to take us to the cape coast, where the slave forts are, and to kumasi. we got pretty tight with george (the driver, on the left) and ben (the tour guide, on the right). they showed us a good time, despite their overprotective behavior and fighting about the radio station. ben ended up being the hero of my trip. ask me to tell you why when i see you in person. it involves my backpack getting stolen by a taxicab driver.

there are goats everywhere here. everywhere. i'm just goofing around here. notice i'm wearing lindsday's outfit from the previous picture. yeah, that's because all my clothes were in my backpack that got stolen. sweet.


the children here are precious, especially in the small villages. when we show up there, they hollar ABRUNE, ABRUNE!, which means "white person" in twi, the most common of the 49 national languages. the children want to say hello and have their photos taken. they also usually want to touch our white skin and then they like to observe our every move. some of them ask for money or pens. in retrospect, we wish we would have brought used clothes or books for the people here. next time.

everyone here walks around with stuff on their head, be it watermelons, a bowl of onions, a bunch of huge branches, or in this man's case an enormous amount of shredded cassava. seriously, i have the worst posture of anyone in this country because they all stand up super straight. most of the women have something on their heads and a baby on their






back just like this, tied with 2 yards of cloth, which is usually very colorful. i'm impressed.

my journey is coming to an end. i'm ready to go home to see my family, have a hot shower and get off this stupid malaria medication. then i'm off to jamaica with my ladies to help celebrate the end of angela's bachelorettehood. after that, i move to new haven and start school. finance and accounting is not going to be as cool as trotting around the world, but it will be good nonetheless.

dubai photos

dubai and the beginning of ghana

after a sleepless overnight flight from bangkok to dubai, i floated through the dubai airport with ease and was in utter delight at how user-friendly this place was. the customs people were smiling (i don't think i've ever seen a customs person smile before, in any country), the information desk was helpful and called my hotel to tell them i was coming, and the taxi drivers were so civilized (such a welcome change from asia where they run over one another trying to get your attention).

i had one night in dubai, so i sprung for a fancy hotel. i let go of $5 and $10 rooms back in thailand after losing sleep due to a very noisy rat who apparently found something in my toiletry case tasty. i arrived at the sheraton and they actually let me check in at 7:30am for no additional fee, again, something i've never seen before. i guess when a place gets 40% of its income from tourism, they attempt to make everyone want to come back for more. after a short nap, i decide to hit the streets. i put on long pants and a modest black t-shirt, but i still look a bit trampy compared to the traditional black dress the local women wear. whatever. i let my instincts guide me around the streets. it's hot. incredibly hot. i'm feeling lightheaded and weak. i ask myself when the last time i ate a meal was. it was last night's dinner in bangkok with abina, where we got a little tipsy on wine (good wine is not easy to find in thailand and i was really excited). huh. maybe i should have eaten more solid food. oh well, i keep walking. i'm not really getting anywhere, and i'm feeling increasingly ill. i decide i need to eat. the only place i passed was a baskin robbins. considering what happened to my digestion the last time i ate ice cream, i decide this is not the best option. so i walk back to the hotel wondering why i'm so nauseous. then it hits me. THOSE DAMN MALERIA PILLS I STARTED TAKING YESTERDAY. it's all coming back to me now, my upper east side medical doctor warning me of the various side effects of the cheaper medication i opted for: anxiety attacks, lightheadedness, vertigo, etc. (i wasn't going to take anything, but when i told my dad he looked really scared and told me he trusted i would do what was best. i pictured calling home to him from africa with the news that i had malaria: nightmare! the whole "hey, i broke my knee surfing" was bad enough, so i spent $100 on the pills.) i ate some food and felt better. during the meal i looked at the map and realized my hotel was not in walking distance of anything. i also realized i hadn't slept more than 9 hours in the past 42 hours. so, i resigned myself to being a tourist and signed up for a 6 hour city tour. being carted around on an air-conditioned bus while someone tells me what to look at sounded pretty damn good.

i don't feel that i have enough experience to say anything valid about this city. i was really only outdoors for about 2 hours total. but, from my limited time, i would say if you mixed wall-street with the desert, threw in some forward-thinking architects and tons of people with disposable income, you'd get something like dubai. i've never seen anything like it before. in fact, i actually, at one point, had to ask myself "should i go camel-riding, skiing or to the beach now?"

i went to bed at 11pm when the tour was over. i crashed into my bed, luckily remembering to stop at the front desk to tell them i needed a 4am wake-up call so i could make it to the airport in time for my flight to ghana.

here's a small piece of advice for travelers: if you are about to board a 8 hour flight and want to get a little shut-eye, skip coffee in dubai. i have no idea what they put in the stuff, but i wouldn't be surprised if it was crack. if, however, 10 hours of in-flight tetris sounds good to you, by all means, have a double. like i did. then, have some free wine at 8am thinking, incorrectly, that it might knock you out. man, i can be a moron sometimes. it was 10 hours because we had "technical difficulties" before take off. lovely.

so, my hotel in ghana was set up to pick me up at the airport, but alas... they were not there. i used someone's phone to call (again, for a dollar) and she said she forgot. he'd be there in 30 minutes. i gave her a piece of my mind. i believe i uttered phrases along the lines of: "do you know how long i've been traveling and how tired i am?" and "in my country, this kind of behavior is incredibly unprofessional and plain rude. i wonder if i even want to stay at your stupid hotel." the poor woman had to take all my anger at the many, many airport pickups gone wrong in the past 3 months. but when my driver, Prince, showed up, i couldn't be mad at him. not with that smile and friendly-manner. plus, i was happy to observe the airport people doing their thing. when i met the swiss woman who owns and runs the hotel, we hugged and apologized to each other. now we're great friends.

if i had more time on this computer i would write about how i can't stop smiling in this country. the people, the food, the smells, the music, everything makes me smile. and everyone smiles back. maybe it's because everywhere i go men tell me i'm beautiful and ask me to go out with them tonight, or marry them. maybe i'm smiling because my sister is joining me in 2 hours. yipeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!! speaking of which, i should get going. the airport is a bit of a trek from where i am.

thanks for reading. if you've made it this far you obviously care about me a little bit. i appreciate it. and i'm looking forward to coming home in 2 weeks time. (sort of).

me, abina and 10,000 other party-goers

last week the lovely abina - who i worked with at iin, lived with for a few months, have spent the last 2 new years with in her hometown in vermont and is just about the smartest 24 year old woman you'll ever meet - came to meet me in koh samui. we planned to go to the full-moon party together and see what the eastern islands of thailand had to offer. it's been fun to have a friend who has known me for more than 3 hours.

we had many adventures, including: 3 thai massages, drinking a smidge too much with strangers from all corners of the world, being the only diners at a romantic restaurant who were not on their honeymoon, a heat-induced 4am panic attack in a beach bungalow, being minorly molested by a man running a temple with a mummified monk, and renting a car and getting through the day without getting lost (thanks to her map-reading skills) and not killing any thai motorbike drivers (thanks to my driving skills).

that first photo was in our favorite hotel, where we stayed during the full-moon party. the view was a little ridiculous. we couldn't stop looking at it. one night i just stared out the windows for 2 hours straight. the photo was taken at 9am after the big party - where literally 10,000 twenty-somethings congregate on the beach, dance to last year's music and drink hard liquor out of buckets. i didn't really want to be awake at that time, but we had a boat to catch.





a celebretory moment on the beach with some bubbly. drinking to abina's graduation, my trip and a bunch of other stuff that is nonsense to everyone but the two of us.

that deck was the spot where we had our fancy dinner. the setting was a little out of control. ah... thailand. i'm going to miss it. i'm at the airport in bangkok right now waiting another hour before i board my flight to dubai.

paradise

i've had the pleasure of spending the past four days on a tiny island on the west coast of thailand. during this time, i've been working on my tan and my ability to do absolutely nothing.

also, i've sat in the same spot for the past four nights to watch the stunning sunsets. each night has been different, as you can see.

thailand

my first three days in thailand were spent in bangkok, a place that i have mixed reviews about. my hotel was lovely (see photo), it was an "organic hotel" where everything in the room had been recycled from something, there was no tv or smoking allowed, it came with a 4-course organic breakfast and the staff were super sweet. i've never stayed anywhere more charming. the city, however, is incredibly hectic and difficult to get around. the taxis all try to rip you off and don't know where they are going. i had one guy pick me up, say he would take me to my hotel, and then he drove off to the middle of no where and turned off the meter. he told me he was lost and i had to pay 400 baht to get to my hotel .this is about $13. the ride should cost $2. it was pouring rain outside, but my stubborn self resisted the urge to spit on him and got out of the car, trampled along this road for 20 minutes, getting soaked until another cab came and tried to tell me his meter was broken. finally, i found an honest cabbie and got home. aside from those difficulties, the temples here are gorgeous (see the gynormous reclining buddha), the food is soooooo tasty, and most of the thai people are super friendly.

from bangkok i took an overnight train to the northern city of chiang mai, where i took a cooking class with my friend sam, a girl who was staying at the same hotel in bangkok. we made coconut soup, noodles, papaya salad and banana cakes. and then we ate it all. yum! i also did a 2-day trek into the mountains/jungle. we rode elephants, white water rafted, went cliff jumping and saw snakes, wild pigs, tarantulas and these bugs that turn into balls when you touch them. the only difficulty was that it was pouring rain and there were some minor mudslides. i fell on my bottom more than once and was pretty much just covered in mud the whole time. we slept in a thai village in a big bamboo hut with private mosquito nets. on my right was an israeli man who has lived in long island for 15 years. on my left was a 1/2 american, 1/2 brit who lives in japan. funky accents all around. the photo of that young girl with her little brother came from the village where we slept.

angkor wat

at a certain point, one can only see so many temples before they begin to blend together and become somewhat boring, but the temples of angkor wat are absolutely mind-blowing. there's over 100 of them scattered around siem reap (in cambodia), in various sizes, ages and stages of destruction. i spent two days touring many of them holding onto the back of a motorbike as i bounced my way through dirt roads, countryside and utter pollution. the temples were build between the 9th and 13th centuries by the Khmer empire. it's unreal how huge and intricate these things are. absolutely unreal.

this adorable guy, who is younger than i am by 2 years, was my guide/motorbike driver. chamnan chhor is one knowledgable dude, with impecable driving skills to boot. if you ever come here, you should hire him for the day to cart you around and point out numerous details that you would overlook, such as the knee positions of the carvings indicating if the temple was built by a buddhist or hindu king. and the sexy underwear worn by the women carving goddesses. if you're lucky, he'll treat you to a bamboo stick filled with sticky rice, black beans and coconut milk, and he'll show you how to turn the stick into a spoon to scoop out the deliciousness.

cambodia: an eye-opening 6 day journey

hoi an, vietnam

for the past 4 days i've been living the relaxed life of one of the many tourists in hoi an, a small city near the beach in central vietnam. it's famous for the 300 tailors who want to make you a suit, pants, shirts, dress or shoes on the cheap. there's also a fairly well preserved old town here with many temples. at night, all the restaurants and shops along the river have those classic vietnamese lanterns hanging from their balconies. it's gorgeous.

today it's raining lightly, which is fine by me because it's given me some time to do absolutely nothing. i'm sitting in an internet cafe which has no walls, charging my ipod so i can have some music on my flight to cambodia the day after tomorrow. i'd upload some photos, but the internet is too slow.

some stories from the past few days:

my hotel assured me they would send a car to the airport to pick me up. the airport is a good hour from the city. i arrived... no car. there was one payphone, but i needed a pre-paid calling card, which i didn't have. the taxi drivers and motorbike drivers aren't allowed to cross the street from the parking lot, where they all wait for tourists who they can overcharge, to the sidewalk outside the arrival gate. but some of them sneak across, changing their shirts. or they send their girlfriends over to ask worried-looking white people if they need i taxi. after 15 minutes of telling everyone i had someone picking me up, i asked one of the girls if i could use her cell phone to call my hotel. "one dollar!"
"deal."
the hotel receptionist assured me the driver was on his way.
10 minutes later, 20 taxi-cab ambassadors waiting for me to make a move, i decide to just take a taxi and swallow the $10 the hotel already charged me for the ride. i see one girl calling me over to a cab. i go towards her. the other girl, who rented me her phone, comes over and hits the one i'm about to strike a deal with atop the head. i jump into the closest taxi, show the driver the address of my hotel and put up ten fingers. "ten dollars." he grins, we speed off, catfight in our dust. i'm sure i'm overpaying, but whatever.

yesterday, needing a break from the hustler-tailors in town, i took a motorbike to the nearby beach. 10 minutes away. $1 for a one way-ride. again, i'm probably being ripped off. i don't care. i'm happy to practice balancing on the back of the motorbike without grasping this stranger's waist. i'm getting pretty good. the driver takes me to his "friends" restaurant on the beach, where i demount, slightly burning my right calf on his engine. his face says "stupid girl." i don't yet know that i'm supposed to get on and off via the left side. lesson learned.

the woman in charge of this restaurant tells me to lay on one of the beds on the beach. "how much?" "50,000 dong", about $3. this is too much. i tell them i just want to lay my blanket on the sand. the driver gets in a fight with the restaurant/beach chair lady. apparently, he didn't fulfill his end of the bargain. i walk away, seeing a spot in the distance that looks inviting. i put down my blanket and smile; i love the ocean. i hear a man yelling "you," "you." it's my motorbike driver. . i tell him i'll be about 3 hours. he gives me his card, shows me where to go when i'm done. they'll call him. he wants another dollar. now i know i overpaid. i still don't care.

i open up my book, "catfish and mandala" - about a vietnamese-american who returns to his homeland. it's the perfect book for the moment. enter, the swarm of ladies selling fruit, beach balls, jewelry, pringles (whoever is in charge of the international marketing of pringles is doing really well) and cigarettes. "you buy!" "me unlucky today. uuuu be first buy. make me lucky. pleeeeeez" 5 sellers for every prospective buyer. every 3 minutes one of them comes to my blanket, puts her basket down by my face, offers me a line and stares at me until i answer. "no thank you" doesn't work. i learn to not look up, pretend they are not there. i don't know what else to do. one elderly woman with no teeth, who i would guess was no younger than 80, pierces my heart. damn, i hope i never have to work in the sun at her age. i decide to buy a coconut. she doesn't speak english. i say "coco nut," while making a round shape with my hands. she flashes a toothless smile and runs off, leaving her basket with me. 2 minutes later she runs back, a cold coca-cola in hand. i debate just buying this instead. i don't want her to have to run again. but i really don't like soda. i say, "no - cocoNUT." and make a bigger circle with my hands, and sign a straw. she gets it, runs off again and back with a coconut. she says 10,000 dong with her hands. i give her one american dollar, a 50% tip. really, it's the least i can do. i get that smile again and she is off to the french guy who is parked beside me.

when i'm done at the beach, i go to where my driver said. they call him. he's there in less than 10 minutes. he must drive faster when i'm not on the back. i tell him i want to stop 1/2 way at one of the restaurants along the river. he doesn't understand. i get on and when we pass the spot that caught my eye on the way, a sancuary without walls and plenty of sofas, i tap his shoulder and point. he gets it. we pull onto the floor of the restaurant, perched 10 feet above the river. the floor is a few wooden boards with gaping holes inbetween. the possibility of it collapsing underneath our motorbike enters my mind. he knows better than me though, we're fine. it's 3:15. i hold up 5 fingers and point to my watch. understood. he takes off. i take a table right on the edge. white bamboo couches and tons of pillows. the bathroom has a real toliet, not one that's in the floor, which makes my heart jump. and toliet paper! and soap! SCORE. i order a beer and one plate of white rose, a specialty of hoi an. steamed dumplings with i don't know what inside. pork, maybe. and fish sauce for dipping. i watch the river go by for about an hour. another beer. sometimes fishermen roll along with their conical peasant hats. the chalkboard on the side of the restaurant says:
sit quietly
do nothing
spring comes
grass grows
by itself

i'm in my element. i wonder if i've ever eaten in a more pleasant environment. i'm sure i have, but i can't think of when. 5pm comes quickly. my bill is $2.50. my driver is there. back to the hotel. i give him 2 american dollars after getting off on the left side. he bows in appreciation. i go into my hotel and one of my friends, carson, is on his way out, back to australia. he doesn't want to leave. i'm happy that i've still got 1/2 of my trip ahead of me. i sit with carson until his motorbike taxi comes. the driver puts the enormous backpack between his legs. carson has his daypack on his back and another bag in each hand. off they go, amongst all the schoolgirls in white uniforms made of silk, laughing as they ride their bicycles down the unpaved street. i go up to my airconditioned, king-size bed, $15/night room and see him off from my private balcony.

mama napor on the scene

my sister, lindsay, has been to vietnam twice and whenever she would talk about it, my mom would always look sad. she really wanted to come here, but my father had no interest. when i was making my plans, i asked her if she would join me in vietnam for a week or two. she jumped at the opportunity and i was lucky to have her here for the past 8 days. she left this morning. coffee this am was not as fun.

we met in ho chi minh city and stayed for 4 days. she took great care of me as i let go of my crutches and started to walk on my own. we also went to the mekong delta, hanoi and halong bay. we ate like queens, stayed at some fancy hotels and spent the night on a boat.

this photo is in the mekong detla. my mom and an elephant ear fish that the waitress made into spring rolls with rice paper, pineapple and cucumber. how cute is my mom?
pringles, anyone?
halong bay overnight cruise. there's over 3,000 mountains in the water here.


'tis the season of the lotus flower

floating markets. they tie what they are selling on the top of the bamboo stick. most of the people live on the boat, which is also their store. this one is selling watermelon. you also see yams, coconut, fish and other tropical fruit.

typical vietnamese architecture

14 hours in KL - on crutches

the way that around-the-world tickets work (for those of you asking me how i'm managing to do this trip) is that you pick a direction, east or west, and then have up to a year to make 15 stops along the way around the globe. usually this is done through many airlines that are partnered with each other, such as star alliance. it is really cheap when you compare it to the cost of a round-trip ticket to asia or australia. i got mine through STA, b/c i'm going to be a student again soon. if you're interested, i recommend it! anyway, sometimes you have to fly through certain cities, for example i had to fly through kuala lumpur to get to vietnam from bali. so i decided to spend the night and see some of the sights.

i had no idea what to expect. my knowledge of malaysia was pretty much nil and i had the added stress of being on crutches and painkillers that make me a little loopy. i have to say that i was so pleasantly surprised by the beauty of this city, the friendliness of all the people and how easy it was to get around. i stayed at an airport hotel and hired a driver - a great guy by the name of seelan who used to work in boston - to take me to all the sights in the morning. there was no way i could walk or get on a bus. my leg was not bending. 4 hours of a personal driver/tour guide cost me $100.

it is one of the most architecurally impressive places i've ever seen. here you can see their "twin" petronas towers (the headquarters of the national petroleum company). the country of malaysia is doing pretty well for itself, thanks to their oil.


this pink mosque is in puduraya, just outside the city, where all the government buildings are located. they've all been built in the past 10 years. i'm afraid my photo doesn't do this building justice (my crutches were limiting my photographic skills). it is the largest mosque in the world and jaw-droppingly beautiful.

trouble in paradise

my first day in bali was wonderful. i sat on the beach, went swimming in the ocean and decided to take a surfing lesson because the beach where i was (kuta) is known for being one of the best beaches in the world to learn how to surf.

bali is mostly hindu and they put these offerings out all over the place, usually on the ground.

this is the pool at my hotel. i paid a whopping $40 a night for one of the nicest places i've ever stayed.

check out my bathroom, altar and all.

now look at my left ankle compared to the right. something very wrong there.

me laying in bed, on the phone with my traveler's insurance because of a fall i took on the surfboard. the doctor thought i tore my acl and told me to stay in bed for 5 days. so i didn't get to see as much of bali as i would have liked, but luckily my hotel was relaxing and the staff were incredibly helpful.

and don't worry, i'm still smiling. i didn't tear my acl. just a sprain, i think & hope. i've been on crutches for about a week and am moving very slowly. i'm also growing rather fond of balinese pain killers.