The Panda Factor

A few years ago, I went to visit my friend Mike in Taiwan for a week, and then we both went to Japan for an additional week. One day, we were sitting at the teahouse at the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto drinking tea on a pleasant afternoon when Mike suddenly said “Can we get up and go someplace else?” I said “Sure, but why?”, and he told me that he was facing the main entrance to the park, and he was getting tired of all the double-takes and gawking the Japanese visitors were giving our table, because they were surprised to see a tall, blonde white guy there. Mike said that he felt like he was having tea with a panda at the zoo. I told him, “Oh that, yeah, I’m used to that by now.”, and he replied “Well, that’s because you’re always a panda in this part of the world.”

The Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar. One of the most beautiful museums I've ever been in.
Surprisingly, it was designed by I.M. Pei  

The inside of the Museum of Islamic Art

Since then, “the panda factor” has been my term for how much I stand out, or how out-of-place I feel, in any particular country or culture. And let me tell you, in India, my panda factor is off the charts - much more than Japan, Hong Kong, or Jordan. In traveling by now, I’m fairly used to getting double takes or long stares and I don’t even really notice those much. But I tell I’m really a panda to the locals when I start getting people (typically 3 or 4 young men or teenagers) coming up to me to say “hello” or “where are you from?”, only to discover when I reply that those are the only English phrases they know, leading to a very interesting awkward period where neither of us really know what to do next. For those who know a little more English, the script is almost always the same: they ask where I’m from, I say “America - Washington, D.C.”, and they invariably respond the same way - “Ah. Barack Obama!” This is sometimes accompanied by a thumbs up. If the current president ever finds the burdens of office too much to handle, he should be able to find extremely lucrative employment in TV commercials or perhaps a rock band anywhere else in the world, because he seems to be a very popular guy.

A sculpture of Shiva, from the Elephanta Island temples, outside of Mumbai

Monkeys and dogs, competing for handouts on Elephanta Island

Then there is my current pinnacle of panda-ness: the photo with the caucasian stranger. Here’s how this one goes; I’ll be at some monument, park, or other tourist area, taking photos and someone (again, typically a group of teenagers or young men) will come up to me and convey that they would like to have their photo taken with me. Sometimes with the tourist attraction in the shot, sometimes not. Then one of his friends will swap out, pose in a casual and friendly manner with me, and occasionally passersby will get in on the act. Then we all shake hands, say “Hello” and “Where are you from?” and continue on our ways. This has happened 7 or 8 times in the first week here in India, and every single time it happens I have the same question: What story do they tell people about that photo? Do they tell friends elaborate epic stories about knowing this guy in the photo and all the cool things we did together? Or is it just “here’s some guy I took a photo with”? Am I in photo albums or slideshows in Japan and Jordan? Maybe if it happens enough times, I’ll finally trigger the 6 degrees of separation rule and I’ll meet someone somewhere who will say “Hey! I know you! You were in that all-astronaut heavy metal band with my friend a couple of years ago, I saw that photo of you two in India!”

Hmm, there might be a way in this to make enough money to keep traveling. I wonder if I can get Barack in on this action. After all, we are neighbors.

The Gateway of India, in Mumbai. Designed by the the Brits and built in 1911

P.S. The eventual end result of a rising panda factor is, of course, crossing "the panda threshold". This is when I've had enough being gawked at and simply want to return to my hotel room and hide for a while. This also has happened since coming to India

Marine Drive, the main coastal street in downtown Mumbai

P.P.S. Went to Old Goa today and was approached by a group of 6 Indian tourists to have my picture taken with them, which led to about two dozen photos of me being snapped. After this was all done, one of them asked me what my name was and where I was from (no surprises there), and then I'm pretty sure he tagged the photo in his cell phone! Now I'm almost certain there are stories being made up about me... I just hope they're not more interesting than my actual life.

Mumbai, I just don't have the words to describe you...

But if I was forced to chose just one, it would be ‘overwhelming’. It’s less a city than it seems to be an ongoing explosion; a riot of noise, color, pollution, heat, and constant chaotic motion. It’s everything happening at once, and it’s in your face whole time. So, after just a couple of hours, I gave up trying to overlay any orderly narrative on my experiences, and just started noting the most eye-catching examples and contradictions. Of everywhere I’ve ever been, I think this is the one where the statement “you have to see it for yourself” is most true. That being said, you’re probably reading this to hear about it, so I’ll convey some of my experience during my brief stay (by the way, I’m writing this in the airport, heading to Aurangabad, a short flight east of Mumbai, to see ancient caves filled with Hindu, Buddhist, and Jainist carvings).

Two facts first, Mumbai is big and it is filthy. These are the two things that struck me first on my ride from the airport to the hotel at 4am; big (i.e. crowded) and filthy. And I say it now to get it out of the way, because it’s so much more than that, but you cannot ignore either of those things while you’re here, and it’s so much of a shock for the first day that it almost overwhelms the good. It’s one of the largest cities in the world and the 12 million or so people who live here are packed into a fairly small coastal area, and a large percentage of the population live in what would be considered “slums” by American standards. Taking the train, I saw tents backing up to shacks backing up to tenement buildings backing up to nice apartments. Almost any available space is used as living quarters, much of it with no plumbing or electricity. And I did see people tossing garbage onto a veritable hill already present in a vacant lot, while there were people sorting through the garbage for anything edible or worthwhile. There are beggars too, but the city has made begging illegal, and surprisingly, this seems to have worked… although if I had started giving out rupee to one who did approach me, I’m fairly certain I would have been instant surrounded nonetheless. All of that is here, in force, but it’s only one (highly noticeable) part of a very complex city.

Mumbai is also the financial powerhouse of India, and something like 6 million commuters make their way downtown and back everyday. Against the recommendation of my guide book, I took the train downtown one day (25 minute ride, 2nd class, one way = 10 rupee, about 1.6 cents). At 9:30am, it was less crowded than the DC metro would have been and I actually got a window seat through the heart of Mumbai. Coming back, however… well, at 8:30pm on the night of a major festival, it was a different story. Within one stop the train car filled to sardine-level capacity, and then for the next four or five stops, new passengers would simply grab onto the edge of the doors and lever their way onto the train, until the whole car was full of compressed commuters, to the point where taking a deep breath was difficult. I ended up going three stops too far, as did several other riders, simply because I couldn't shove my way to the door before the next crowd shoved in and the train moved on. It was quite a memorable experience, but it made me keenly aware that something that was an adventure for me is simply the daily commute for millions of people.

I was lucky enough to be in Mumbai on the last day of the Ganpati festival, which is the annual festival celebrating Ganesh, the Hindu god of learning, new beginnings, and removing obstacle. Ganesh is my favorite of the Hindu gods, and usually is shown as a chubby man with an elephant’s head, with 2 to 4 arms, and sometimes riding a rat. Like this..

And since he is usually described as being playful, friendly, and a lover of sweets, he’s a pretty likable and well-liked deity. In Mumbai, the festival is a multi-day event where locals craft and decorate statues of Ganesh, display them for a few days, and then on the last day carry them down to the main coast road on floats or by hand, and immerse them in Mumbai Bay (which, by the way, is fiercely polluted). This year, the last day of the festival was my 2nd night in Mumbai, so I walked along the coast road and watched the festivities until the crowds got too bad, which is ironic, because I didn't want to get stuck in a crowd, only to get on the train. Local businesses often sponsor statues and floats of Ganesh, and I saw several spectacularly decorated wagons go by with music and drums playing, dancing, people throwing dye or spraying silly string into the crowd, and lots of firecrackers going off. Mumbai seems to know how to throw a festival. They also seem to know how to use a festival to sell stuff, like the "Ganpati Sale" at Toyota, or this...

All of which is to reiterate my point that India is overwhelming to me. One of my first posts a couple of months ago was about Norway, and not “feeling like I was in a place” until late in the trip. That is impossible in India. From the moment I left the airport parking lot, I knew exactly where I was, and in many ways it was what I was expecting, but so much more intense than expected. Until I get a little more acclimated, the best way I've found to cope is to narrow my focus a bit onto the little things, like the fact that all the women wear the most beautiful and colorful clothes I've ever seen, or that the roadside fruit stands put Whole Foods to shame, or that 3-cent roadside chai tea is like nectar, full of sugar and highly addicting.

By now, you've probably noticed that I mention a lot of the cliches about India (cows in the street, beggars, colorful, noisy, etc.), and I’m not a fan of cliches and stereotypes, but after seeing them again and again, I can’t deny that they are here and they are real. The trick, I think, is not to get so focused on them that you miss the things you aren't expecting, or the things that contradict the cliches. Bear in mind that I spent a grand total of about 2.5 days in Mumbai, and saw a very tiny piece of this very big city, but I feel like I've been here a week, just because it’s such an intense experience. From here I’m planning to explore the historical cave sculpture for a couple of days, then head south down the coast in search of beaches, elephants, former Portuguese colonies, tigers, and amazing spicy food.

Finally, the remainder of my photos from Croatia and Montenegro are up on the photos page.

10.5 hours ahead of DC? What's with the extra half hour?

Since internet access is likely to be spotty for the next few days, I just wanted to let everyone know that I safely arrived in Mumbai (the city formerly know as Bombay) at 3:00am local time. Since then I've checked into one hotel, slept, checked out, checked into the guest rooms at the Mumbai International Society for Krishna Consciousness*, walked the streets for several hours, drank a refreshing green coconut from a street vendor, rode in a tuk-tuk (motorized rickshaw), and ate an enormous plate of Indian food for dinner. I think that probably is enough of a good start for the first day.

I had a great time in Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia and got some great photos which I'll post later, but for now I'm going to concentrate on not getting hit by cars, not rinsing my toothbrush with tap water, and enjoying India.

* Yes, really. But don't worry, I'm not converting, just staying in a peaceful, cheap, clean, and safe room.

Sovereign Ground

(Please note that the pictures here are unrelated to the rant, I just had some pictures from Croatia to share, and a post that I've been thinking of for a while, so I put the two together. Feel free to ignore one or the other - but not both)

One of the rivers that winds around Ljubljana, Slovenia, a very pretty town

Where most of the rest of the pictures come from, Plitvice National Park in Croatia

Plitvice is a series of stepped lakes with waterfalls and hiking trails on both sides

I am going to say something that many may find strange, or even disturbing. I like airports and train stations. I really do. I love the frantic chaos, the constantly shifting and tumbling destinations and times, and watching the reunions and departures. But most of all, I love the sense of potential and anticipation I get, the feeling that something is about to happen, whether I’m departing or arriving. Please don’t think I’m a total lunatic; I get annoyed in airports, I hate it when my train is delayed, I can’t stand the people who line up for reserved seats 20 minutes before they open the boarding gates, and I don’t like farewells. All of that is easily overshadowed though, by the thought that I’m about to go somewhere.

Plitvice is considered one of the most beautiful places in Europe, and I would agree

It is also full of tourists, but since I was hiking before and after the daily rush, you won't see many in my photos

If you go, I recommend staying a couple of days to really see it all; it's stunning

For me, airports and train stations are the ultimate physical expression of transition, of boundary zones, where I’m leaving one place and going to another, and that’s always exciting. Beyond just physical boundaries, they are also a grand stage where most cultural and emotional boundaries are made more elastic. They are places where people’s guard is down and emotions run high. You can see the most tearful good-byes, joyous reunions, and out-of-proportion anger over a 20 minute delay in boarding caused by making sure the aircraft that is going to fly you over the ocean is in good working condition. It’s where you see people walking around in short-shorts in Minnesota in January, parkas in Cancun, and pajamas with pillows during the middle of the day. They’re places where it’s perfectly acceptable to be eating ice cream at 9:00am, having pancakes at 7:30pm, and drinking 24/7, because after all, you just flew 17 hours and you’ll be damned if some teenager behind the counter is going to tell you that they stopped serving breakfast at 11. Throw in kids on their way to grandma and grandpa’s, overweight businessmen in suits running at full tilt with a carry-on flying behind, dogs in mesh satchels, and the persistent and pervasive odor of Cinnabon, and the only thing a circus has to top it are lion tamers and elephants (and I haven’t been to an African or Indian airport yet, so I may even be wrong about that).

My favorite airports are the ones that service a large number of cultures and geographic areas, Istanbul in particular. Where else in the world beside the UN do you see so many faiths, peoples, and cultures together under one roof in relative peace and quiet. The fact that they are peaceful and quiet because they’re exhausted from travel or worry that their incoming train is an hour late is irrelevant to me. In fact, due to their essential similarity (I haven’t been in an airport yet that I couldn't navigate directly to the restrooms or food court) and the fact that they typically operate at least one step removed from local mores and customs, I’m proposing that all airports and train stations be designed sovereign ground, like embassies. They shall be places of diplomacy, cultural interaction, and refuge, disconnected from place and time, with sincere apologies for the delay and free Wi-Fi for all.

Paddleball, James Bond, & history lessons in the middle of the street - Greece, part two

I covered a lot of ground in Greece, and I'm very glad I did since I really feel like I got to see very different aspects of the country, and they all contributed to a great trip. I spent just under 3 weeks there, visiting Athens, 2 islands (Naxos and Crete), the central plains (Delphi and Meteora), and finally Thessaloniki in the northeast.

The Parthenon

A very hot afternoon at the Parthenon

Athens first, because I'll probably say the least about it. It's a huge sprawling noisy grimy city that happens to have the Acropolis in it. I'm sure that's a terribly limited view of a great city, but that's essentially my advice: see the Acropolis, get lost in Acropolis neighborhoods looking for a restaurant, have a great dinner, then get the heck out of town. That was more or less my Athens experience (plus cute street cats), and I feel satisfied with it. If the Athens tourism council takes offense to this and would like to try to change my mind with an all expenses paid trip back, I'm willing to consider it.

The amphitheater at Delphi

From Athens, my friends Dave, Christina, Kate, and I took the ferry to Naxos, the largest of the Cyclandic Islands. Just taking the taxi from downtown Athens to the port of Piraeus is an incredibly memorable event in itself, since it appears the entire population of Europe is in taxis trying to get to the port and on the ferries at the same time. I'm pretty sure quantum mechanics was discovered on a trip the port, because it's not unusual to see several taxis occupying the same volume of space at the same time. "Ferry" doesn't really do these floating cities justice either. On the return trip from Naxos, we watched a ferry loading people, cars, campers, and semi-trucks for a solid 20 minutes. Like most things traffic-related in Greece, it's simultaneously an impressive and nerve-wracking spectacle. As the largest of the Cyclades, I felt like Naxos had enough "island vibe" to keep me happy, while still having a great old city and enough to explore of the rest of the island to keep busy, if that's what you're into. We didn't strain ourselves to explore that much though, as the beaches are inviting and make fore great people-watching, as the spectrum there runs from "Italian super model wannabes" to locals to "Balkans in speedos". What's impressive is that they all seem to be about equally comfortable parading at the beach. Well, parading, and playing paddleball, which judging from the popularity on Greek beaches, will be a summer Olympic event by 2020. In fact, now that I think of it, we should just spin off "Beach Olympics" from the summer games. Just imagine it: beach volleyball, beach paddleball, 800 meter ocean dogpaddle, and competitive basking. I think it would be a ratings winner for sure.

Another monastery with the city of Kalambaka behind it

What's the best place to sleep? In the middle of a doorway in a high-traffic tourist area, of course!

After a very pleasant few days in Naxos, it was time to return to Athens for a friend tap-out -- Kate and Christina left for Ireland just after Malissa arrived -- and to pick up our car to drive to Delphi and Meteora. We spent an afternoon exploring Delphi and consulting the oracle (the prophesies were vague and open to interpretation), we journeyed on to Kastraki, at the foot of the Meteora monasteries. Aside from being when Rule #1 ("Don't drive in Greece") was developed, this was also one of the places where the awe of the Greek history really kicked in for me. Sure, there are ruins all over, but this quickly leads to "ruin burnout" for me (Look! Ruins! More ruins! Our hotel is built on ruins! That homeless guy is using ruins as a restroom!), but when I'm in places like Delphi, which has been at the heart of stories that changes the world for hundreds, if not thousands of years, I get enthusiastic. Nor am I alone in that, apparently, since on a taxi ride in Athens, we noticed a cool statue, which our driver first told us was called "Marathon Man" after the original marathon run after the first Persian war in 490 BC. He then increasingly emphatically pointed out the original Olympic stadium, then told us the entire story of the run from Marathon to Athens, and finally unfolded a map to show us the distance between these cities... while still driving in the middle of downtown Athens traffic. To me, this demonstrated the Greeks' passion for their history, as well as confirming Rule #1.

Early sunset, in black and white, at Meteora

Late sunset at Chania's Venetian Harbor, on Crete

A day at the beach in Crete

A panorama view of Balos lagoons on Crete

Pure blue Mediterranean

We then spent 2 days exploring Meteora, which is where several Greek Orthodox monasteries and nunneries were built on the top of very precarious-looking narrow rock formations. They've been a hub for religious and monastic traditions for upwards of 6 centuries, and, more importantly, served as a location in the mediocre James Bond film For Your Eyes Only. The whole area is beautiful and very impressive with the towering rock formations hanging over the towns and what look like toy fortresses perched upon them. The spiritual and reflective setting is disturbed slightly by rampaging hordes of Russian tourist, but every once in a while they clear out and you can be left in quiet contemplation that a James Bond movie was filmed right where you're standing. I mean, how cool is that?

The "rare" and "elusive" endangered kri-kri goat in Samaria Gorge on Crete

I put "rare" and "elusive" in quotes, because as soon as tourists showed up...

... the goats started acting less like an endangered species and more like, well, goats 

Still cute goats though

For the capstone of the trip, we spent three days on Crete, the largest of all the Greek islands. Large enough to practically be its own country, and certainly large enough to forget that we were on an island. But there is a wealth of culture, history, and mythology associated with Crete, like King Minos, the Palace at Knossos, the Minoan civilization, and the cave where Zeus was born. The actual cave, they have road signs to it and everything. In America, we can't even find a sitting president's birth certificate, but Greece can keep track of where Zeus was born at the beginning of time. Take that, "information age."

Christina, Kate, and me under the grape vines at a taverna on Naxos

"Rrraarr! Chris crush puny monastery!"

Anyway, Crete is a great place for a vacation, and it's large enough to have a month's worth of attractions to explore, but we made due with just visiting the Palace at Knossos, the old city in Chania (the capital city when Venice ruled Crete), Samaria Gorge (Europe's longest gorge), and some of the most photogenic beaches I've ever been to -- rocky, yes, scorching hot, yes, but with beautiful blue Mediterranean water that makes it a fantastic place to laze around for hours under an umbrella. Oh! and the food everywhere! I think I mentioned the food, right? It was really good, and I think I ate at least one of everything you can pull from the ocean, plus an amphora's worth of feta, cucumber, and some of the best tomatoes ever grown. And Greek coffee! I love Greek coffee! And iced espresso you can get delivered to your beach chair! And really, what more do you want in life than iced espressos (and beer) delivered to your beach chair on the shores of the Mediterranean? That's Greece, to me.

Everyone knows that all the cool dogs hang out at the ATM at night in Chania

Malissa, Dave, and me at Meteora

Rule #1 for having a pleasant holiday in Greece, "Don't drive in Greece"

Rule #2 is "You look skinny, have some more to eat." These are my gems of wisdom after almost 3 weeks touring around Greece. It's an amazing country and I'm really happy I got to see as many different sides of it as I did, and I'll tell you about all these wonderful places in my next post. But first, the rules....

Can't get much more Greek than this; caryatid columns and Athens stretching in the distance like an ocean

Rule #1 comes from the fact that Greece has the highest driving fatality rates in western Europe, and some unique driving habits that aren't immediately apparent to the outsider. On the whole, the roads are very well maintained and cars are in good condition, but the local driver seem to consider concepts like "speed limits", "lanes", "road shoulders", and even "oncoming traffic" more as suggestions, probably best followed by other drivers. At any given time, what looks to an American driver like a simple 2-lane country road may be occupied by 1, 2, 3, or 4 side-by-side cars, traveling at different speeds in both directions. This can at times be a source of stress to the unfamiliar driver. In another variation from the States, turn signals in Greece are typically used to signal when you wish someone else to get over the the right or left of the road, not for signalling your intentions. Throw in narrow winding mountain roads without guard rails, large tour buses, and aggressive local drivers who won't hesitate to pass large tour buses on narrow winding mountain roads without guard rails... well, it's a recipe for drinking after driving. Don't worry though, Malissa, Dave, and I came through without any injuries, and so did the pair of cars we rented during the trip.

Looking up toward our hotel from the harbor in Naxos

Small village life in Halki on Naxos, complete with grape vines

Looking at Naxos through the Temple of Apollo doorway

Thanks to my poor skills with manual cars, I did mercifully little driving (thanks Malissa!), which left me time to admire the beautiful views, try to ignore the oncoming traffic in our lane, and wonder what all the little shrines along the road were. Very soon into our first day driving, we noticed what looked like miniature churches on stands by the side of the road; first one, then a couple more, then dozens over the course of the day. Our first thought was that they were remembrances of loved ones who died in accidents on the road, as you see in the States, but quickly decided there were too many of them for that. When we finally asked someone what they were, it turned out that our original assumption was correct; there really are that many fatal accidents to memorialize. The funny part is that the person we asked was the rental car company representative (after returning the car, thankfully). To his credit, he didn't sugarcoat it, even if he seemed a little embarrassed. So to sum up, take the bus or train, hire a driver, or fly between spots. The reduced stress is worth the added time or expense. Or if you're really good at driving stick and you want to pretend you're James Bond escaping the bad guys, rent a powerful car and go have "fun".

The valley behind Delphi

Delphi

Ruins at the Temple of Athena, Delphi

The second rule reflects that the food I had in Greece was good, really good. Always really good. And in large quantities. The menus usually have sections for "cold meze" and "hot meze", which I usually read as "tapas" or "small plates", but somehow I never ceased being surprised after ordering one or two meze and a larger plate that I would receive enough food to feed a table of four. The real problem was I was sitting at a table of four, and all of us did the same thing. I swear, we did our best, but our best just wasn't good enough to finish off that much food, especially in 90 degree sunshine. I"m not going to lie... there was a lot of basking in the sun this trip, as everyone knows, there's really nothing like eating your own weight in food and then wearing a swimsuit in public to enhance your self-image. I compensated by imagining I was a crocodile who had just brought down a water buffalo, because no one tells a crocodile that he's looking chunky.

The town of Kalambaka, below the monasteries of Meteora

The nunnery of St. Barbara

The monastery of the Holy Trinity

But wait, it gets even better. The reputation for "Greek hospitality" is not over-exaggerated (most sentences end with "my friend"), and the restaurants are in fierce competition with each other, so not only did my friends and I consistently order twice as much food as would be comfortable to eat, but there were complimentary desserts! And complimentary coffee or liquor after the complimentary desserts! And once, complimentary desserts after the complimentary desserts!! I tried to say no several times (really!), but they just don't take no for an answer; you will eat their free food. This has two effects; you're going to eat more than you might consider "too much", and getting the check will take you at least 30 minutes longer than you're expecting. So please picture this: it's 10:30pm, you've just eaten a pint of tzatziki, a loaf of bread, maybe some calamari, grilled lamb, and a garden's worth of greek salad (topped with a shingle-size slab of feta), and here comes your waiter, bearing ice cream sundae and a vial of raki. How are you supposed to say no? (PS, don't drink the complimentary raki, it's basically moonshine).

The Venetian Harbor in Chania, on Crete

The view from Gramvousa Fort on Crete

Here's one more story about the food (and my first un-exaggerated one). My last day in Thessaloniki I was scolded by the hotel for checking out late, but what I didn't tell them is that I was only late because I didn't factor in the extra "complimentary" time. I stopped for lunch at this amazing seafood place (Frutti Di Mare, it's going on the recommendations page I'm working up), finished my meal, and asked for the check with 40 minutes before I planned on checking out. I thought I was safe because it was only a light lunch (ie, complimentary bread, complimentary dip, fried squid, french fries, and a plate of grilled vegetables).

"Can we offer you some complimentary dessert, my friend?"
"No, thank you, I have to go, just the bill please."
"Are you sure? It's very good. Maybe some coffee?"
"No thanks, I'll be late if I do."
(Puzzled expression at this concept of "late") "Are you sure, my friend? Just a little coffee maybe?"

One hour, one greek coffee, and one dessert later I walked into the hotel to get my bags. But he was right, that dessert was very good.

Morning in Samaria Gorge, Crete

Samaria Gorge near its narrowest point

Now that I have the stories of white-knuckle driving and gorging out of my system (clarification: just the driving was white-knuckle, the gorging was totally relaxing), my next post will focus on all of the wonderful part of the trip like the sun, the sand, the sea, the natural beauty, the history... and probably more eating.

PS, I've also made some updates to the gear page for the two-month mark.