Secret Asian Man- Wadi Mujib on the Downside

I’m nearing the end of my time here at “the crossroads of Armageddon”, as some have put it.  And while we approached Amman with a good deal of trepidation, we’ve grown to enjoy the place. As long as one pays attention, it’s not too hard to live a normal-ish life.  A life quite different from that of the TV screen.

Of course, once there’s an end date, there is also the sudden appearance of a list. A list of all the the things you still haven’t seen or done or eaten.  Or the things you said you’d do again when so-and-so visited.

“Man! They’d love this!”

Hiking Wadi Mujib was one such place. Closed ½ the year due to high water and restricted to those over the age of 18. Lifejackets are required. Guides are sort of posted at the hard parts. It’s only a couple of hours hike.  One hour in. One hour out.  Hiking or slogging up stream like spawning salmon into a canyon only a few meters wide. Scrambling up waterfalls.  Fording deep pools hand-over-hand on a rope. Terminates at a waterfall.  Sometimes you can slip behind for a good natural Hammam experience.  Today, though it was closed. Too much water coming through.

You head out the way you came in. Back down the ropes and ladders or if you can, sliding down the rocks and floating.  Letting the current carry you along. Back down to the car and dry clothes.

Today, was a repeat experience. The water was high from the rain a week ago. It felt at times like every river and stream in the country was pouring through this slot. But, it was as much fun as anticipated.  

If you come, plan on April through Early-December and plan on getting wet. There is no way around it, though it is gentler as the season wears on.

Here are some shots from the day….

Entering the Siq

Small water fall

Crack in the sky. 

Fording the rough parts with ropes.

Secret Asian Man-There Are Better Ways To Die Than With A Needle To Your Neck

I am a bit of a hoarder.  I like things that are useful. I like to be prepared.  So, when I go to fancy hotels and they have free toiletries, I take some.  

My favorite are sewing kits. They are incredibly useful.  You never know when you might need to sew on a button, fix a hole, darn some socks. There is a tiny box with a couple buttons, a variety of thread pre strung onto needles. When I find one, I chuck into my baggage, to be ready for a fashion disaster. In my carryon there are multiple sewing kits rattling around at any one time.

Flying in the world has become more and more of an ordeal. Nowhere more so than Jordan. Because of its proximity to people who don’t like us, Jordanian flights to the US must undergo extra scrutiny.  For a short time, laptops and Ipads were banned carry-on items. Then, under threat of losing all flights to the US, they had to promise to be extra careful with flights headed directly there. 

So, they did.

Now, after you’ve had your bag scanned at the entrance to the airport, and after you have your bag scanned to get through normal airport security, one must line up and have all your bags hand searched by real-live people.  Men are searched by men. Women are searched by women. It easily adds an hour to the boarding process. They’ve walled off one section of the airport just for these American flights and their searches.

I’ve flown to the U.S. three times now recently.  I go extra early.  I stand in line. I get my belongings rifled through. Each time, they open my bag, pocket by pocket. And each time they pull out my sewing kits and give me a finger wag and throw them in the trash.  

This latest time, I laughed and said, “For sewing” mimicking sewing on a button.  They just shook their head. One of the guys took his finger and poked it into his neck.  

“Really?!”  He smiled and shrugged, all the while overlooking the following…

my eyeglass repair kit

a rubber-tipped dental pick

a mirror, a razor

a charging block

a cord

nail clippers

wire rim glasses

keys

I believe I would have a better chance of beating one to death with my Ipad than killing someone with a needle to the neck. Breaking off a piece of glass and shimming in betweens someone’s ribs.  

But took the needles they did.

You may be shivved, stabbed, bludgeoned or strangled, but be rest assured, America, your necks will not suffer the tiny pricks of terrorists.  Thanks Al Qaeda!

Secret Asian Man- The Difference in Economy Classes

Emirates and Etihad are some of the world’s top airlines.

FlyDubai is not. It is a budget airlines. Low frills. All one class. No free service.

If you’re flying to Kabul, you can take either option.  The difference is stark.  

At the top end are moist towelettes to freshen yourself when you sit down.  1000 channels of entertainment. There are little stickers you can stick on your seat to tell the staff not to wake you for a meal, or to wake you if you’d rather.  A reasonable meal.  Fuzzy blankets. Free water. Free wine or beer.

The passengers are those that can afford the top end ticket. Nicer clothes. Gold jewelry. Smart phones.  They are at least bilingual, maybe more.

FlyDubai has one class of service; Economy. They’ve sometimes got TV screens, sometimes they work. No meals unless you pre-ordered. No drinks, not even water unless you want to pay.  

The clientele is totally different. From Kabul, anyway, many may not have flown before. Watching them board the plane is entertaining.  The attendants on the plane seem steeled against the boarding passengers.  Stationed strategically, they greet each person, check their ticket and then point at the seat numbers and count and send the person down the aisle.

The passengers advance until the meet someone else, passenger staff, it doesn’t matter. They show their tix and look pleadingly for help finding a seat. They stop searching and plop down into the first empty seat they come upon.  

Confusion reigns, then, when the rightful owner approaches and finds their seat occupied. They look at the number, their ticket and back again.  They ask for help. An attendant approaches and tries to shoo the person to their proper seat. 

Sometimes they go. Sometimes they shrug. They remark that they found an empty seat next to their friend, so they'll just sit here if no one minds. 

Speaking no Dari or Pashto, the staff is left with raising their voices and gesturing. If someone doesn’t move, they plead with the other person to just sit in the other person’s seat.  

FlyDubai.. We can take a reservation, we can’t keep a reservation.

The people who eventually sit next to you, illiterate and innumerate though they may be, are the kindest you may meet. There is singing. They talk. There are no strangers.  The second the wheels are up, they pull out bread and cheese and cookies. Maybe some chocolate. I haven’t been offered so much food by strangers ever. 

Adding value to a budget flight.     

S.A.M- Grief Issues

My dad died, quite suddenly, in 2009.  

He was a bit of a hoarder. Not a hoarder as in a room full of pizza boxes kind of hoarder, but he had a hard time throwing things away. His father once discovered a shoe box full of every Hong Kong commuter tram ticket he’d ever received. He road the tram daily.

He was an avid cook and many ease-inspiring gadgets crossed his threshold. Anyone remember the cubed hard boiled egg maker?How about the metal plate that was designed to defrost food faster without a danger of spoilage or hazardous microwaves. As seen on TV!

We spent an evening on summer holiday, stopwatch in hand, witnessing two chicken breasts thaw. One on a dinner plate and one on this magic disk. He swore it was faster until my next time to visit when the disk was stashed. My inquiry was met with a look that said it was bullshit.

In his safe (another story for another time) was a box containing his old wallets dating back to the 70s. Given that he used things until their ultimate demise, this meant there about 7 wallets total. But they were still filled. Old business cards, cash, Elder beerman credit cards, photos, film processing receipts.

He was an award winning photographer. He had hundreds of cameras and associated gear.

He would read all he could about photography and gear, too. Or he tried to. He worked long hours. He'd often come home in time to catch the 11pm news, finish his reheated dinner and recline on the couch with a photography magazine in hand. He was asleep in minutes, the magazine splayed open on his lap.

Growing up, our basement filled by the month, with issues of photography magazines. He installed shelves for them all. Someday, maybe there'd be time to get through them.

My mom, nesting and awaiting the delivery of my brother, intervened. Throwing them away while my dad was away at a meeting. Neither one to yell much, when he came home you could hear them through two floors late at night. It was as if she'd gambled away one of his kidneys and lost.

After he died, my mom never canceled the subscriptions. She'd let them collect for a while and then move them on. After she passed, we did the things they tell you to do. Call social security, call the lawyer, forward the mail and cancel subscriptions.

I swear we cancelled all the magazine subscriptions. But, the photography mags kept coming. The expiry date on the mailing label was September 2017. Why would anyone have a decade long subscription?  My guess is that he feared missing out so much and so renewed whenever they sent him a renewal notice. Back then that seemed to happen quarterly.

I was miffed at first. It was a monthly painful reminder of a loss. They came and it hurt. I thought about calling to cancel them again, but I stopped myself. Why not let them come?  

And so they have. For nearly 4 years they came to me in the US. These last few years, they've followed me all over the globe. I take them along on trips and leave them when I'm done. I've sprinkled them all over the Middle East and the South Pacific.

Dutifully, I leaf through each one. I read about all the photo tech. I read about editing and lighting. Sometimes, I even doze off with a magazine in my lap. I must say I think my photography has improved immensely.

He was always trying to teach us. About lots of things, but often about taking pictures.  Why a certain picture was good and another great. Maybe that's why the magazines kept coming. Maybe there was more to teach?

Next month, 8 years later, the last issue will arrive.  And that has been the measure of my grief.  Issue by issue, page by page, shot by shot,  The subscriptions will expire. I haven't received a renewal request from any of them.  That’s how I know it must be time.

Travel Serendipity

This is how travel serendipity happens and it doesn't happen quite often enough, but just enough to keep you moving.

You meet a former guide who asks to meet you later for drinks at the Petra Kitchen. You have no idea where that is, but you wait unit you're hungry enough to go out looking for it.

Walking after dark, you spy a small sign for “Petra Kitchen”, but the place looks kind of closed. You open the door and ask about a table. The host tells you that there is a cooking class going on tonight and they're closed.

A couple is sitting in the center of the restaurant.  They are the only two people in the place. They shout out, “We've just cooked enough food for eight people and there's just the two of us. Why don't you join us? “

The perplexed waiter agrees and pulls up chairs and place settings. Bowls and cups appear and food is passed.

And that is how you meet Marc from the U.K., (who spells his name with a ‘c’ in my mind, because he's in advertising and I feel that he must spell it that way) and his Spanish bride Maribelle. They both live in Dubai. They tell us about the dishes they've cooked and how everything was prepared.

And we had a wonderful home cooked Bedouin meal, and a great conversation about corruption and government and the Ministry of Happiness, and what a job that would be.

Though we'll likely never see these people again, we feel better for dining with them.

And all for pushing on a closed door. We never did meet our guide.

On the Edge of Tomorrow

It's been a pretty long trip this time.  I'm winding things up with a drop in on Apia, Samoa. Just near the International date line.  You can see me on the map to the left. I'm the little yellow pixel, just below the letter 'A' in Apia

Since mid-September, I’ve been to Ohio, Minnesota, back to Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, New Zealand, Fiji and Samoa and then back to Indonesia.  I’ve changed my watch ten times.  Including my own, I’ve slept in 11 different beds. Now, part of this was with family and wasn’t work related, but I was on my own for a while.

Pre-mid life crisis, I used to dream of finding a job that would pay me to travel.  So here, I am.  Living the dream!

The upside, you can meet interesting people from all over.  You discover some unique and beautiful locations.  

A cab driver recommended this beach an hour so away. It was great to drive out and find it on a map and just camp out for the day.  Dozing in the shade of a fale, watching the waves far out on the reef. It's a great way to spend a morning.

He also recommended this waterfall. You can't hike to it, but you can pay the land owner $2 toview it from afar and imagine what it may be like to hike down to it.

Or there is this place, To Sua Ocean Trench.  Rated a “Place to see in your lifetime”  by someone who rates such things.  It’s an old lava tube that’s roof caved in.  The ocean fills it through an underground tube.  The only way down is via the ladder.  As swimming holes go, it is pretty idyllic.

You also stumble across some entertainment opportunities.  While out looking for dinner the other night, I found the Second Annual Samoan Jazz Festival, right there on the street. There was a solo, electric ukelele act who was simply wailing out the hits. Later there was a Cuban Salsa band and the night finished up with a Samoan/NZ Luther Vandross cover band.  It was amazing.  And throughout the evening. This was the view. Just a superbly unexpected evening.

The downside is the travelling by oneself. You don’t have anyone to share anything with.  No one to watch you dive into the deep blue hole No one to look at the sunset you’re pointing at. No one to shimmy with.

I guess this is long winded way to say, “Wish you were here!”

Lombok

Here is your travel tip of the week…

Go to Lombok.  Bypass Bali and head to the next island down the chain.

Why? Well, the island had been described to us as what Bali used to be like many years ago, and I’d definitely say it is more laid back.  

It is easy to find small villages of bamboo huts (and satellite dishes)  We stopped by one village that

had a weaving cooperative.  There was one woman weaver in her 50s who spoke no English and no Indonesian.  Rather she spoke a traditional Sasak language.  Indonesia has been an independent country for 70 years, so this woman’s been living remotely well enough and recently enough without any exposure to the national language.

Traffic is far less,so far.  The island is big, so it still takes a while to get places though.  The roads are small and wind through forests with troops of monkeys and at times are clotted with herds of water buffalo.

Wait, did he say water buffalo?!  Yes! Where do you see water buffalo?  Right there on the flipping road.  And, can I say that a baby water buffalo is pretty darn cute.  

They still use these animals to plow fields.  They are slowly being replaced by tractors, but because of the way water buffalo walk and how deep they step, the grass and the weeds grow back slower, so, though the tractors are easier and eat less, farmers have to spend more time weeding in the fields.  

Besides the beasts of burden, many people get around by cart and horse.  In true rural fashion, the cart and horse drivers sometimes gather on Sunday afternoons and drag race their horses and carts. In fact, on occasion they’ll hitch up their buffalo and race through the fields.

I am telling you. You gotta get here.

Now, if you’re not into scenes of pastoral weaving or machismo, they have standard island fare as well.  

Beaches are many and vast. Kuta Beach and Senggigi are nice and long and fairly clean. Kuta beach still has room at one end for motor scooter races by some of the locals.  It looks easy to find your own isolated beach with very few people.  

Surfing is good, as is diving and snorkeling.  We’re told it’s some of the best. Alas, a communication misfire kept us from trying, but we’re are headed back.

There is a nice waterfall hike that most people could do and the more adventurous can hike 2 to 3 days

to the top  Indonesia’s 2nd highest volcano.

But, get here fast!  It is not totally pristine.  Touts and tourist traps and karaoke dives are cropping up.  The dozing giant of development has one eye cracked open.  The Sheraton is there and it is pretty posh. It is just a matter of time, before others come.  

In one area of the island they’ve started illegally mining for gold, chewing up water resources and indiscriminately pouring mercury over the earth.  Everyone is aware of the damage this can cause, but in the words of our driver, “Safety is #10 in Indonesia.”  The government has come around and given out warnings, but there are no attempts to hide any of this activity.  

I don’t want to put anyone off.  My point is, before the rivers run dark and the weavers die off and the water buffalo babies move off to greener pastures, take the short ferry from Bali, or fly to Lombok direct and check it out.  Maybe we’ll see you there.

Here are some high points for you….

Coco Beach Warung.  Very nice relaxed place to enjoy the beach and the sunset.  Great food. Great prices.  Great staff. Could sit here all night.  Bring bug spray though.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g297733-d1199751-Reviews-Coco_Beach-Lombok_West_Nusa_Tenggara.html

The Studio Villa.  Up the hill from Sengiggi Beach.  A little hard to get to/from, but taxi’s are cheap and easy to get with staff’s help.  Nice views. Attentive Staff.  Fresh breakfast prepared in your villa every morning!  http://www.thestudiolombok.com/

Trisna Transport.  Fairly reasonably priced driver and tour service. English speaking guide.  Pretty knowledgeable about the surroundings. Very flexible and easy to work with.  Trisnatransport@gmail.com  or www.lombokpanoramatour.com

Scuba Froggy.  While we didn’t dive with them we had some dealings and they seemed fair and better yet, safety conscious which is good when there is no great medical care on the island. http://www.scubafroggy.com/

S.A.M-Travel Insecurity

I read on the news wires recently about how the TSA failed to find some 90% of illegal items when inspectors tried to get them through.  

Here in Indonesia it seems they’re actually getting better.  Or at least their practicing to more stringent standards.

When I first started traveling from here, my bags would be scanned, but I was never sure if anyone was at the screens looking at the images.  I never took off my belt or emptied my pockets.  When I set off a detector, I was given a wand over that usually confirmed that I had some metal on me, but they never asked to see it.  It seemed like they just wanted to confirm that their big metal detector was working okay. They’d wave me on through.

Lately, though, they’ve made me take out my laptop and take off my belt and empty my pockets.  They even made me take off my, mostly plastic, watch.  This watch never sets off an alarm at any U.S airport. On a recent trip from Jakarta, though, it set off the alarm and they made me go back through.

There are still some gaps in the net, though.

On the same trip where I had to remove my watch and walk back through the magneto portal, I caught up with my baggage and a security guard waiting for me.

Guard:  “Sir, is this your baggage?”

Me: “Yes.”

Guard:  “Are there scissors in here?”

Now, it is hard to convey, through this written medium, the power of the “Force” at work in this situation.  But, let me tell you it was amazing!

Me: “No, there are no scissors.”

Guard: (To Monitor watching Guard.  In Indonesian.)  “He says there are no scissors here.”

Monitor watching guard:  “Okay. Let him pass then.”

Guard: (To me)  Okay, sir. Thank you. You may go now.”

And, so I moved on.  

This was all witnessed by my incredulous daughter who muttered all the way down the concourse.  

“We are going to die, we are going to die, we are going to die!  It would be so easy to do something.  I can’t believe anyone can just talk their way out of an inspection!”

“Is that a handgun in your bag?”

“No. It is not a handgun.”

“Okay. These are not the droids we’re looking for. Have a nice day!”

Levelling Up!!

To recap from our last episode, we sent our daughter off to her first Bacchanalia.  A post semester high school party scheduled to start at 11 pm.  Yes, 11 pm.  Far too late for any working parent to go spy or chaperone.

So, we sent her and a friend with our driver and a litany of warnings and do’s and don’ts and faith that she had enough common sense to come home safely.

And, she did!  

She came home safely within curfew.  Remember, this is a liberal drinking age country and she confirmed that alcohol was flowing freely.  We’ve never really hidden alcohol from our kids.  They’ve been offered tastes from a very young age and none of them have liked the taste.  Whatever taste we’ve provided has often been spit back out.

So, we counseled for years about the alcohol hiding in all those fru-fru drinks and how this is often a young person’s downfall.  “This tastes just like Kool-Aid!”

This advice, though, offered no preparation for the Indonesian way of nightlife.  The drink of choice for your typical teen here?  Vodka… shots.

And this, in a single moment, demonstrates the power of peer pressure.  

All the years when she’s been offered sips of beer or wine by her parents have been met with a screwed up face and gagging and sometimes spraying the offending agent back at us.  But, when a classmate offers her a shot of vodka?  Sure, why not?  Everyone else is doing it.

She said it tasted awful, and this is when, maybe, common sense kicked back in and she didn’t drink anymore.  She did get some interesting insights into how alcohol works in some of her friends.  She said this party was a lot like her catholic middle school dances, when everyone was sort of goofy and disinhibited because they didn’t know better.  Dancing and talking in clots and acting silly.  

3 or 4 years on, it is still the same; disinhibited but for different reasons.  Best of all, though, she had fun and would go again. And we will feel a little more comfortable with the idea.

On the other side of the family tree, our son passed his first semester at university and successfully navigated his way solo around the world through missed flights and lost luggage and nearly 24 hours sitting in a metal tube.  It is wonderful to have him back in our lives for a few weeks.

This week it feels good to be a parent. I swear last night I heard a deep, warm, computer-generated gong-tone and a deep voice that said,..

“Level Up! Congratulations! Adolescent knowledge attained.  You gained 50 experience points, 10 wisdom credits and 1000 grey hairs!”