Former Travelogues

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Shanghai September 2002, Part One

As part of my blog I am adding edited excerpts of emails I sent on past travels.

As I prepare for C’s and my move to Shanghai in January 2015, it seems particularly apt to take a look at when I last visited Shanghai. It’s funny, but I keep thinking that I was in Shanghai “fairly recently,” but 2002 is not recently at all! I visited Shanghai for one week during a break in my graduate classes in Singapore.

After the overnight flight on which I got only 2 or 3 hours of sleep, I was barely conscious of my arrival in Shanghai. As a friend told me, Hong Qiao airport is more like a bus terminal than an airport, quite unlike the beautiful new Pudong Airport on the other side of the city. At 6:30 in the morning there just wasn’t much happening at the Hong. I caught a cab to the city, because of course the cab drivers all claimed that there wasn’t a bus to the city, even when a bus drove by right in front of me!! At least I talked them down from the ridiculous price of 380 kuai to the city, because the guide book said it was 50 kuai. But I couldn’t get less than 100. And it wasn’t even a real taxi, it was a nice van. They, the nice van guys, told me the taxis were just for short distances. Hmmm, I think I will be going back to the airport another way. Though, to tell the truth, $12 is not a horrible price to pay from an airport to the city in any country.

The day before my departure I had checked online for information a hotel which was to have dorms. Their website indicated all the types of rooms were available for Saturday. I figured since I was checking less than 24 hours before my arrival, I could safely expect them to remain available after I arrived. Still when I checked in and asked for the dorm I was told they were full. I mentioned I had checked the computer the day before, and miraculously one bed became available!! I just love that, milk the foreigners for all they are worth.

At 7:30 in the morning my room was devoid of people. I thought it odd that in a 6 bed dorm everyone was up and about so early. But maybe they are like me when I travel: early to bed and early to rise? I stayed up to get some water at the little mini store which opened at 8, and then I took a nap until 11. That felt good. Once I got up it was still cloudy but I thought I should at least go for a walk. The hotel I stay at is quite close to the Bund, the riverfront symbol of Shanghai. I somehow thought the Bund would be a bit nicer than it was, so much hype about it I suppose, but it is a rather cool place to go for a walk, because so many people are about. On one side of the Bund, the same side of the river is a main road, and many colonial buildings from the early 20th century. Grand, imposing structures that have a proud, weary, worn feel to them. On the other side, next to the busy brown waterway, is the modern New Pudong area, with a huge pink needle like skyscraper, a building with two glass globes flanking it, and several more shiny new tall buildings. So the Bund seems to flank both the “old” and the new in Shanghai, kind of a walkway between them? Really cool. Today I took a picture of a set of quadruplets dressed identically and wearing funny masks. They were maybe 3 years old and so cute. I am a bit surprised by people’s reaction to me, they still stare. I thought since this is Shanghai and many foreigners live here, that there wouldn’t be much staring, but I am a celebrity again!! I even noticed a few people taking pictures of me when I walked by. But I thought it was kind of funny when I stopped to check in my bag and then was on my way again, and a group of young women became frantic because they hadn’t gotten their camera out in time. Just the day before, an old man and a little Chinese girl had stopped in front of a huge Soviet-style statue and it was such a perfect picture, I was fumbling about for MY camera, but wasn’t quick enough!! I was stopped by several people today to chat and for them to introduce themselves and practice English. One guy asks if he could accompany me all day and show me around. I politely told him that I prefer to sightsee on my own. And thankfully he accepted that. I have had others in Tunisia, Italy, and Paris who would not believe me when I said that, and I was followed for hours….. But not here, not yet.

When I stopped to talk to the first guy who introduced himself to me, and then three children hung around to try and listen in and demand I speak Chinese (which I tried!), of course a few people would stop and watch the spectacle. And when I stopped to take a picture of the four identically dressed boys (all in pink!) with the funny Groucho Marx glasses on, we became a circus act in ourselves. The parents beaming that a foreigner wanted to take pictures of their children, the children unable to all have their glasses and stand still at one time, and myself trying to take the picture. A regular three ring circus it was. I managed to extricate myself from the circus and still the crowd was forming, because it seems in China when a small group of people begins to form, others cannot help but go and see what is happening too, so even after there is little to see, the crowd continues to grow.

Yesterday, I took a walk down Nanjing Lu, the main shopping drag of Shanghai. I stopped in and got a bad manicure and pedicure, but the most incredible foot massage ever! I think the pedicure was so bad, because normally they only give it to men. So my toe nails were at a rather longish length and I just wanted them cut nicely and some polish on them. They are sooooo short now, men’s length! And the polish, ugh! It was somewhat amusing to watch the man trying to put polish on my toe nails (especially as they were so short!). A woman working there saw how it was putting the polish on and told him to move and let her do it because he was doing a bad job. But she didn’t do all that great either. But the experience was worth it. The nails will grow back.

The hotel I am staying at is the Pujiang Hotel, one of the oldest hotels in Shanghai, and what used to be one of the most posh It used to be called the Astor Hotel and then Richard’s Hotel, and the likes of U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant, Einstein, and other celebrities stayed here. Now it is the location of some of the cheapest accommodation in the city. It still has the high ceilings and imposing rooms, but all are a bit worn for wear. It has a neglected feel and seems dark and tired, but it is also kind of cool. I wonder if Einstein stayed in my room? Though I have a feeling that it was the billiards room, because the light on the ceiling has that look about it. It has what used to be a fireplace, as well as a small alcove that can be closed off, which to me speaks of a small smoking room or gambling room off the billiards area. But I could be wrong, but it doesn’t matter, I’ll just think of it has the former billiards room anyway.

Ah, but what craziness my room is! Yesterday when I arrived at 7:30 in the morning, no one is there. Then at 7:30 pm when I returned, the others are sleeping. I was annoyed because I wanted to take a shower, but a pair of pants was floating in the bathtub. But I think, well, they ARE early to sleep, early to rise people. I am just going to go and do a little email, and then I will go to sleep early. But after email, I watched the Fellowship of the Ring in the bar, and went back to the room at half past ten, which had then become a flurry of activity! All the rest of the room members are women from Mongolia, and hard partiers from the look of it! They were all getting ready to go out, putting on make-up, in all states of undress/dress, and yakking up a storm!! They were talking so loud. The television was blaring. One girl in her bed chattering away on the phone, and almost as soon as she would hang up, someone would call again. I realized I wasn’t going to get any sleep right away, so I started to write in my journal. After half an hour though, my eyes were getting too heavy. I put my stuff away, and lay down, but the yakking did not stop! They even turned to me and told me sorry, they would be off soon, and then returned to talking to each other at the top of their lungs. Mongolian to me sounds like a cross between Korean and Russian, which isn’t all that surprising, but of course I did not understand a thing. But I didn’t care; I just wanted them to talk quietly. Half an hour later they will still going strong and I was about to scream. I asked them if they were going out, and they said in two minutes, sorry, and off they went again using up oxygen as though it were in short supply. About 20 minutes later they finally left. Though one girl arrived back at 5:30 in the morning and stomped about in her high heels as loud as she could, back and forth, back and forth across the room.  I cannot help but hope these women check out tomorrow.

Today I took the psychedelic Bund tourist tunnel under the Huangpu River to the New Pudong area and checked out a mostly empty mall and the Shanghai aquarium. The aquarium was really, really good. In my opinion it is much better than the one in Singapore, which really surprised me. Especially as the Shanghai one mentions conservation, while the Singapore does not. Yeah, China!

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Two Weeks Backpacking in Portugal, June 2002

As part of my blog I am adding edited excerpts of emails I sent on past travels.
In June 2002 (between my first year of graduate school in Monterey, California and the start of my one year of study in Singapore) I backpacked through Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar and Andorra for a total of six weeks. Two of those weeks were in Portugal. I entered the coastal south of the country by bus from Seville, Spain and departed from the midsection by truck to Caceras, Spain. I visited Tavira, Lisbon, Sintra, Obidos, Nazare, Porto, Viana do Castelo, Coimbra, Evora, Portalegre, and Marvao.

It was a fantastic two weeks, I think in a large part because I traveled about one week of it with CH, a woman from New York I met in a hostel in Lisbon. I remember us heading to a small bar/restaurant in Lisbon to listen to Fado music. In Obidos we stuffed our faces with plums we stole from someone’s tree. In Porto we took a wine tour and watched the US beat Portugal in a World Cup match shown live in a local theater. In Viana do Castelo we strolled through the old town and skipped rocks on the beach. And the most memorable part of Coimbra was our drain-less shower in the hostel! CH and I are still friends to this day.

I also particularly remember Portugal because I hitchhiked there. Twice! I still have a hard time believing I really did that, but I did. I have only done so maybe 5 times in my life (twice in Japan and another time in Taiwan).

Day One
I entered Portugal from Seville to stop first at Tavira on the south coast. I am sure I stopped here for historical reasons and chose to avoid the more touristy/more popular town of Faro on some kind of principal. Unfortunately I did not like Tavira. Perhaps I was too tired from the bus ride and the already two weeks backpacking in Spain? The only thing I wrote about Tavira was “Great if you like absolute Boredom! OK, I am not good at relaxing. I was so bored I paid 2 euros to ride toy train about town. And the town was so small they even took us to some run down parts which you wouldn´t think would be on any tourist toy train trip.” Ouch.

Day Two
I took the train to Lisbon. Part of track was broken, so at one point the whole train load had to get off and take buses to the next part of the track. Then we changed later to a boat to take us into Lisbon. Lisbon is nice but I was tired. It was an easy day.

It does not sound easy when a train has to unload and then take buses to the next part of the track and then load back onto the train and then change to a boat, does it? However, in my travels I have found I am often amused and delighted by such things as train delays. In my day to day life this would drive me nuts, but I am willing to accept and embrace it when traveling. I remember when I took a bus from Sydney to Canberra in 2000 and the bus broke down. I recall it being fun.

Day Three
Lisbon. I visited the Aquarium. I had to since I attend graduate school in Monterey where there is a popular aquarium. I also visited the Monastery at Belem-beautiful. I took a tram up the windy streets to Sao Jorge castle, but disembarked early because of an overzealous American hater. I only asked him if this was the way to the castle and I got a monologue ‘I don´t know. I have been going nowhere for 20 years. My wife and I love Portugal, come here every year (and yet he does not know where the castle is?). We just were in Paris, but are stopping here for a week. Best place, Lisbon. Up ahead on the left is a church where they had the body of the king of Romania for years because no one else wanted him. [I interject with a “wasn´t he executed?] What? No! They never execute anyone here, not even the bulls…..Where are you from? America? They don´t much like Americans here, and I agree. That crazy president…’ As he simply continued on and on I got off the next stop I could. That night I went to see Fado, a traditional Portuguese song and music, with two girls from the hostel. Really nice Fado, really bad waiter.

Day Four
I visited Sintra, the former summer residence for the monarchs of Portugal. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. These days I absolutely love visiting UNESCO World Heritage Sites – I thought I was at the time I visited Sintra as well. Yet the only thing, and I mean the ONLY thing I wrote about the town was that it is “Beautiful, but COLD.” It must have been quite cold. I do have a pretty strong dislike for the cold and apparently it can blot out memory of all else. Perhaps I need to visit Portugal again?

Day Five
Obidos and Nazare. I took a bus to Obidos, a really nice town, with two women from the hostel – Sun Hua from Korea and CH from New York. We left our bags at a grocery store and explored until the bus to Nazare arrived. As we walked around the town we found a plum tree. CH marched up and plucked a plum and ate it. So soon we were all robbing the tree of its fruit and stuffing it into our bags and mouths, though mine all went into my mouth. We walked atop the town walls and met a nice American couple and did the obligatory photo exchange. Then we happened upon a guy below the wall behind a house doing the same as my man in Seville. The guy was busy exciting his equipment in full view of the wall, and it brought more excitement to him that we came upon him. I couldn´t believe this, two guys in less than a week. I am sure this happens frequently enough, but I don´t usually happen upon them! We took off as quickly as the thin walls with a 10 foot drop would let us hurry, though later we thought we should have heckled him or something.

We then caught the bus to Nazare, known for its traditional dress of seven petticoats, and for the most aggressive housing ladies in Portugal. I was a bit disappointed that only one lady, with big hair, gold teeth, and lots of gold jewelry, met our bus. She was aggressive, but after all only one. We got down to the main street and then we were swamped with offers of places to say about every few feet. It was difficult to walk the 10 minutes to the tourist office, because we had to stop every few feet to find out about some place to stay. I was very keen to take the funicular car up the hillside for the great view, but of course it was broken! So we walked up. Nice view though. Cute little town, and the older women really do wear the traditional clothing.

Day Six
Porto. It was raining, a bit of a disappointment. Porto is supposed to be really nice, but at first it was hard to tell in the rain. And it was a bit COLD. What in the world, it was JUNE! We found a nice place to stay though, the woman there was so super. Smiles all the time. Really sweet. She more than made up for the rain. So we rested. I was still traveling with Sun-Ha and CH. In the evening Sun-Ha fell asleep really early, but CH and I took advantage of a lull in the rain to take a bit of a stroll about town. The big bridge over the river was beautiful at night.

Day Seven
Porto. We caught the Portugal-USA World Cup game for free at a theater, where a wide screen television was set up. We got all kinds of stuff, whistles and some plastic things to beat together, as well as a game schedule. It was quite fun, but as you can imagine since the US won, the mood was a bit somber as the crowd filed out. We tried to get on tv, and they did come over to us, but then proceeded to ignore CH and I in order to interview Sun-Ha. What! South Korea wasn´t even playing! Then we headed over to a Port wine cellar for a free tour and free samples. None of us were wine drinkers but we each had a taste. It was fun, and the weather was very fine! We walked back over the top of the bridge (all the wine cellars are on the other side of the river because the temperature and soil are better or something). I want to go back someday in September when the grapes are harvested so I can take part as some wine houses we still do the wine processing the traditional way-with feet! I want to do that! We also visited some sights in Porto, including a tower and the old Stock exchange. A very good day.

Day Eight
Viana do Castelo. It rained for much of the morning and early afternoon. I was thoroughly disappointed that once again the funicular which was to take me to a top of a hill for a beautiful view was out of service. What is it about the funiculars in Portugal? CH and I had an adventure trying to find the supermarket, but we took a wrong turn and it seemed everyone had been sent to avoid us. We saw an old man who looked as though his path was going to intersect ours so we slowed down to time it right. CH went up to ask him and he ignored her! She said ‘Pardon’ about three times before he seemed to notice we were there. CH and I took a stroll around the old town, which seemed deserted, and skipped stones by the beach.

Day Nine
Coimbra. I had not intended to visit Coimbra, but I wanted to head south to the city of Evora next and the trip by bus was going to take me 8 HOURS from Viana. I just couldn´t face it. So I decided to rest a day in Coimbra before venturing on to Evora. Coimbra is home to Portugal´s oldest university. Of course it was cold and raining when we were there. We still went up to the University and checked things out. But even with umbrellas the special sideways rain soon has us soaked and we took refuge in the Geography building, or it could have been the Science building. Anyway, we joined the ugly, unfriendly dog already hiding out there, and hung out and sang songs and watched the antics of the dog and his little dog friend until the rain subsided. The most memorable thing about Coimbra was the dog.

Day Ten
Evora. Evora is supposed to be Portugal´s premier town, a UNESCO world heritage site. For me a backpacker now on my own again, and really needing to pee, it was a nuisance. After hopping off the bus, I inspected the bus station toilets, which were horrible. Squatters and each with a little surprise pile in the middle of the toilet. I thought I would just walk into town and find a place to stay and go there. Yet it took me one and a half hours to locate the tourist office and a place to stay. The youth hostel was booked up, and so were all the other cheapies. Luckily there was a public toilet I could use and I didn´t have to wait the whole 90 minutes and the place I found. I paid 22 Euros for it, the most so far! And it was bare. No sink, no toilet, just a bed and a night stand. Though it did have a tv with CNN, so it was okay. The shower was a trickle, and there was this annoying ritual to get into my room. The room I was staying in was in another building from the reception. So I had to go to the other building first to have them let me into my building every time. I asked why we couldn´t have a key to other building and just received a withering glance from the 14 year old boy running reception. So I often went to the public toilets instead of back to my room for emergencies while strolling about. And there were no grocery stores. I had to eat in restaurants! The shame of it! 🙂 I have just been eating cheaper recently. The one grocery store had about three little aisles, with old vegetables, candy, a few blocks of cheese, and a whole aisle for detergents and stuff. Not exactly a place to stock up on food. There was the Roman era Temple of Diana; that was nice. The center of town was nice too. I followed the aqueduct out to an old poorly cared for fort, and that was it. So I decided one day was enough in Evora.

Day Eleven
Portalegre. I caught the bus from Evora here. I was going to continue on to Castelo da Vide, but since I had to wait several hours for the connecting bus I gave up and decided to stay. Besides Portalegre looked appealing as we drove up on the bus. (It had finally stopped raining when I was in Evora). And they had a REAL supermarket. So, I stayed the night there. I walked around the nice center of town and found it more pleasing than Evora.

Day Twelve
Castelo da Vide. I was the only person on the bus from Portalegre to Castelo da Vide. A whole 20 minute trip that I waited overnight to do and paid 4.80 Euros. Robbery! I paid 11.70 Euros for the four hour bus trip from Coimbra to Evora, and I paid only 1.10 Euros for the 50 minute train ride from Lisbon to Sintra! In C. da Vide I put my bag down in the tourist office, picked up my tourist map and had a look about town. It is a very nice town. Again, I enjoyed it more than Evora. I left my bag at 12:30 and was to pick it up at 2 pm when the tourist office opened again, but I caught the last 30 minutes of the Portugal-Poland game in a smoky cafe, where I was the only woman. I got a few looks, but I didn´t care. It was a great last 30 minutes.

Then I had to decide what to do next. I wanted to go to Marvao, a town about 12 kilometers from C. da Vide, but it being a holiday there were no buses, only taxis. Sso I decided to try hitchhiking. I had a black marker and I printed in big letters MARVAO on a piece of paper, then I headed down the road. I figured even if I was unable to get a lift, it would only take me FOUR HOURS. Surely I could not be so wimpy as to be unable to walk for 4 hours with my pack on, could I? Off I went. I sang songs to myself and amused myself with thoughts as I walked. When I heard a car approaching from behind, I would hold my sign up over my head. I managed to sing the whole of 100 bottles of beer on the wall! It was warm, there was shade and the walk was not all that unpleasant. After one hour of walking I got a ride! Three siblings, two brothers and a sister, picked me up. They live in Lisbon but have a house in Marvao, which is a small hamlet of only 187 souls perched high on a hill, with almost everyone still living within the old medieval walls. As we drove up, I thought I would have never made it up that hill… The siblings not only gave me a lift but also invited me to dinner and to stay the night. So I stayed with them. I took a stroll around the town, which is applying for UNESCO status, and again, I liked it more than Evora.

Day Thirteen
Return to Spain. Now Marvao being near the border as it is, of course has no public transportation to Spain. There was only one train leaving from another town 9 kilometers away, departing at 1 am. Very convenient. Since I thought the border was only 5 kilometers away, I was resolved, with my success from the day before, to walk across the border and get a bus there, or to get a ride all the way to Caceras in Spain, just 100 kilometers away. I made a new sign CACERAS-ESPANA and started to walk. But at 10 am it was already hot and there was no shade. I quickly doubted this was a good idea. Still, I kept going. But lucky me because a Spanish truck driver stopped for me just 20 minutes into my walk. As he was heading to Valencia he agreed to take me the whole way. We conversed about the EU, the possibility of a Mexico-US alliance like the EU, jobs, the differences between cows, and the like in Spanish. It took a bit longer to get to Caceras because the truck was old and he had to pull over and check the tires and other parts a couple of times. Yet he did take me all the way to the center of Caceras, shook my hand, and then was off. But now back in civilization where buses roam, I will be back to buses.

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An Unplanned Visit to a Thai Prison, January 2002

As part of my blog I am adding edited excerpts of emails I sent on past travels.

In December 2001 and January 2002 I took the five week winter break between my first and second semesters of graduate school and headed back to Southeast Asia. I spent the first two weeks in Indonesia, on the island of Bali, with my then-Balinese boyfriend. Originally we had planned to travel together for the rest of the weeks, but soon after my arrival it was apparent the relationship was not going to last. So, we broke up and on January 1 I flew into Bangkok to begin three weeks of travel split between Cambodia and Thailand.

On January 18, 2002, I had planned to join the usual guesthouse-organized visit to an elephant camp in northern Thailand, except I woke up to late. That sleep in resulted in one of the most extraordinary unplanned activities I have ever done while on vacation. I sent this email that same day, right after visiting the prison.

I stayed up rather late last night talking with my two dormitory roommates, so I slept in this morning and gave up trying to get out to see the elephants on my own. I had breakfast and went for a short walk, but I wanted to do something. The night before one of the dormitory roommates has shown me a nice map of Chiang Mai and suggested I might want to visit the Chiang Mai Women’s Prison. I did not even know if I could get in or if I really wanted to. I wondered what I would say to get in and would I sound convincing and would they think I was a journalist.

Generally, when people think of Thailand, they think of the beaches and mountains, beautiful ruins and great shopping, tuk-tuks and traffic and backpackers. I doubt prisons come into many people’s minds when thinking of Thailand, though of course they are there.

So I walked down to the Chiang Mai Women’s Correctional Facility, which is located almost in the center of the four kilometer square city walls of old Chiang Mai. I walked up to the gate, which was two metal slabs of a kind of celadon green, with a small square hole that slid open for people to talk to the guards inside. It rather made me think of the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy arrives at the Emerald City. Someone inside opened the gap and asked if they could help me. I said, “I want to go inside.” They told me to wait a moment. This seemed almost too easy. After some time – the gates open to let in a truck and some Thais carrying plastic bags of food – two female khaki-uniformed guards come out to speak to me. They ask me if I want to visit the American prisoner. I say I do.

One of the guards informs me that only her parents, brother and sister are usually allowed to see her, but I stand firm. I want to visit the American prisoner. So she tells me to go across the street to the store to buy some things for her and then come in for a visit.
I walk across the street wondering what I should buy. What would this woman need? The guard told me I could buy some soap and a toothbrush and toothpaste. So I purchase these items as well as a bottle of Coke, some talcum powder and some lotion. There is not much to buy in the store and I do not know anything about this woman other than she is American. At the cashier there are some other foreigners trying to buy some things for themselves. They are confused; they do not realize this is a store for prison visitors to buy items for the prisoners. A man at the counter tries to explain this to me and when I tell him I am buying these items for a prisoner who looks surprised. I pay for my purchases and fill out a piece of paper written completely in Thai. Someone tries to help me but one of the questions is the name of the prisoner and I do not even know that. I start to write “American Prisoner” when the clerk speaks with some guards and then turns to me and says “Rebecca.” Yes, I am here to see Rebecca.

The slip is stapled to a bag and thrown into a pile. I protest. I tell them I will be visiting Rebecca and I want to bring her these items. I want to visit her! I sound so sure. Do I really? They inform me it will be delivered to her and I am directed to a small office behind the store. There I wait on plastic seats waiting with a group of Thais. A guard calls out some names and some people waiting come forward and then cross the street to the prison. I wait for my name to be called. The guard merely looks around for me and nods. I want to get my gifts I bought at the store but I am told those will be delivered at 3 pm. It is now 2:05 and visiting hours end at 2:30. I am told to cross the street. This time the green gate is opened to me. I am now inside the prison.

Inside is yet another waiting room with more plastic chairs. There are many people here, perhaps 20 or 30, even some small children. I am told to place my paper in a small wooden trough hanging on some bars. I place it there and step inside another small room where there are people standing in wait. A Thai man next to me tells me in English, “Now we wait.” From there I can see another area. One the outside are guards who are checking the plastic bags of food, writing the names of the prisoners on them, and then passing them through a small window. Beyond that is the visiting room. I can see a long row of chairs and a glass partition separating the visitors from the prisoners. There is a lot of chatter in Thai, most people appear happy. A buzzer sounds and the visitors in the visiting room stand up and file out, a new group of visitors file in. The prisoners are led out, a new group is led in. I wonder what to do. The helpful man tells me, “You will be next, in the last group.” Then a young woman comes up, she looks at me and speaks to the man. She turns to me and asks, “Are you here to see Rebecca?” I tell her I am. The man asks, “What is her relation to you?” I tell them, “just another American.” I ask them, “Do you think that strange?” “No,” the man tells me, “Rebecca will be happy. It is hard in the prison.” He tells me the woman next to him is his daughter. He tells me she used to be inside the prison and she knows Rebecca. The buzzer sounds and the man’s daughter tells me she will take me in to Rebecca.

Rebecca does not have an American accent. Her age is hard to tell. A guard outside told me she has been in prison for about 2 ½ years. I would say she is 35 or 40, but I have no way of knowing. She has reddish-brown hair cut short, and held to one side with a barrette. She sounds German but speaks English well. And yes, she is very happy to see me. She asks my name and why I am in Chiang Mai. She tells me she was born in the US, but only lived there one year, and grew up in Europe, mostly Switzerland. She is in prison because she changed money with another traveler, receiving traveler’s checks in exchange. When she tried to cash them, they were of course with another person’s signature. She tells me she tried to exchange at two places. She says her sentence was 2.5 years for the first attempt and three years for the second. When I say that sounds harsh, she tells me that actually her sentence could have been 11 years but since she plead guilty she received half the time. I am astonished. Surely, this seems wrong.

She has been in prison two years and seven months; she has two years and eleven months to go. She lives in a cell with 150 other women. She tells me the hardest thing is the loss of privacy, but that things are better now as she used to be in a cell with 250 women. She tells me most of the women in the prison are in there on drug-related charges and most are hill tribe women who do not understand as opium is a common cash crop for their tribes. Rebecca tells me that before the sentences for these women were not too long but now they are often for life or even the death penalty. In comparison, Rebecca’s sentence seems light.

She does not tell me any of this angrily or sadly, but matter-of-factly, and even with a slight smile. She has smile lines around her eyes and I wonder how many are from before prison. She admits that she wrong to have done what she did and appears to accept her punishment. I let her talk. She tells me she is glad to talk to someone. Although she has learned Thai, she is currently the only foreigner in the prison. She jokes, “I have been here 2 ½ years and they haven’t managed to catch another foreigner.” The buzzer sounds. She asks me how long I am in Chiang Mai and I tell her I leave tomorrow. I feel sorry to say it, if I were staying another day I could buy her a few more things. She tells me she very much enjoyed our ten minutes and thanks me for coming. She tells me my visit will make her weekend much brighter. I am embarrassed I did not get her more things or that my visit, from a total stranger, could mean that much to her. When she rises, she presses her hands to the glass and I press mine opposite hers. She waves goodbye enthusiastically. I wave in return.

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A Blast from My Travel Past

Just days ago I received a LinkedIn invite from someone I met a long time ago.  It was a very pleasant surprise to have communication again with A, who I met while backpacking in Romania in 2000.  It brought me back to that time, when I was in the midst of an 11 month solo backpacking trip through Europe and Asia, long before I was a mom, when the Foreign Service, even my graduate degree, was just a twinkle in my eye.

I do not have any email stories from that time in my life.  I know I sent some, but the Internet was a much newer thing, and anything I sent during that time is lost to cyberspace.  Romania was sort of a turning point in my trip, most certainly when I look back at the people I met there and in the weeks just after.  I had already been on the road for 3 months.  Beginning in Helsinki, Finland, I had made my way through the Baltics, to Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Bavaria, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Hungary to arrive in Romania.  I was getting tired.  I nearly missed a train change at the Hungarian-Romanian border when the train stopped somewhere around midnight and I noticed I was alone.  I was wide-awake as I had been primed to fear strangers coming onto the train to rob me or gas me and do me harm.  I stepped off the train and noticed there was another train on an adjacent platform idling its engine, while my own train engine was already growing cold.  There were a few men, wearing dark clothes, moving like shadows around the train yard, lit only by a few poor lights.  I asked them if they spoke English.  They did not, and only laughed.  Somehow, I do not remember how, I figured out the other train was the one I need to be one and I changed, grateful then for the other passengers.

Once on the right train and with the morning coming and more passengers, I allowed myself to sleep.  And so I missed my stop at Sighisoara and ended up disembarking at Brasov.  In Brasov, I was harassed by two bus ticketing thugs, who muscled me off a bus and then demanded money and my passport when I did not comply.   Because it was midday I defied them, arguing with them, telling them with bravado I did not feel that if they wanted money from me I would be happy to accompany them to the nearest police station.  I only escaped when I jabbed my finger unexpectedly into the chest of one of the men, yelled “leave me alone!” and turned and ran as fast as I could for several blocks.  I lost them.

Then on my final day in Bucharest I was attacked by dogs.  No kidding.  I was walking along, minding my own business, headed for the Palace of the Parliament, the world’s second largest public building (after the Pentagon), when out of nowhere four dogs appear and surround me.   They are barking and jumping and nipping at me.  A woman leans out of a nearby window on the third or fourth floor to yell.  I think she is telling me to be quiet and not the dogs.  Maybe I am screaming?  The dogs start tearing at my clothes.   I know one dog had my left hand in its mouth.  Another was pulling at my pants behind my left knee.  A third was pulling at my right pant leg at my ankle.  I have never been able to remember what the fourth dog was doing.  A man approaches and holds off the dogs and tells me to run.  I assume he told me in Romanian, but in my head I heard English and I took off like a shot.  I ran across a large street, I’m not sure how many lanes, and the dogs did not pursue.  I catch a glimpse of myself in a tinted bank window and I look like a crazy person.  My hair is a mess, my fast red and tear splotched, my pants torn.  I collect myself and limp a few more blocks to the Palace of the Parliament.  There I first request a ticket for the next tour and then a first aid kit if they have one.

It is after the tour I head back to the hostel.  I start every time I see a dog.  And there were a lot of dogs.  According to the “Welcome to Bucharest” brochure I find at the front desk of the hostel upon my return, the approximate population of Bucharest is 3 million people and 2 million dogs.  The brochure explains that the dogs have become wild and rabies shots are required if bitten.  I think about whether I would have wanted to know this information before my incident, and cannot make up my mind.  What I do know is that my plan to depart Romania that evening on the night train to Bulgaria seems too much for me to take on.

It is at this point I meet A.  He is backpacking for a few months through Europe while on leave from a teaching job in the UK.  He tells me he is traveling to Bulgaria the next day and I can tag along with him instead of leaving that night.  I feel so relieved.   (especially as on the way to dinner that night with another hostel-mate, we watch a dog attack another person in the street)

And wouldn’t you know it.  As we try to leave the next day we are confronted by a fake policeman at the Bucharest train station.  As soon as we enter the station he approaches and requests to see our passports.  We hand them over.  He gives an exaggerated sigh and tells us that unfortunately our permission to remain in the country has expired and we will have to pay a fine.  We have had enough of these poor attempts at bilking tourists and we grab our passports back, tell him to shove off, and continue on our way.   Yet our trials with Romania are not complete.  At the Romanian-Bulgarian border a fake border officer boards the train and tries one last shakedown.  We almost fall for it until A notices the officer’s badge is flimsy, like a Cracker Jack sheriff badge toy, and hanging off his nondescript khaki uniform at an odd angle.  Minutes later the real guys come through and it is obvious our first guy is an imposter.

I travel with A for 5 days.  We visit Veliko Tarnova and Sofia and the Rila Monastery.  In Veliko Tarnova I search the Internet for information on rabies and grow a little concerned that my days are numbered.  A agrees to monitor my progress and let me know if I start frothing at the mouth.  He goes with me to the US Embassy in Sofia as I make inquiries with the Embassy doctor about my possible rabies vaccination plan.

After Sofia we parted ways.  I headed on to Macedonia and A went back to the UK.  He and his girlfriend were preparing for a visit to Iran, a country Australians could visit, though Americans could not.  His girlfriend was having an abaya made to wear while they traveled.  A and I kept in contact for a long while.  After his trip to Iran and the end of his contract in the UK, he made a plan to return to Australia entirely without flying.  He traveled by train across Russia to Beijing, south to Vietnam, then by bus through Southeast Asia to Singapore, then by boat through Indonesia to Bali.  It was only on Bali when he learned he had missed the boat to Australia and the next would be awhile when he finally hopped on a plane.  He joined Australia’s version of the Foreign Service and served in Vanuatu, then Afghanistan, when we lost tough.  Until now, when returning to Australia after 3 ½ years in Pakistan, on the recommendation of a friend he joined LinkedIn.

It’s hard to believe it has been nearly 14 years since we met in a hostel in Bucharest.  Those days in Romania do not seem that long ago.

by

Adventure to Tangier May 2002

As part of my blog I am adding edited excerpts of emails I sent on past travels. 

In May and June 2002 I backpacked solo for 4 weeks in Spain and 2 in Portugal.  In Granada, I met up with my Monterey, CA roommate, P, who was in Spain for language study, and we decided to make an impromptu trip to Gibraltar and then across to Tangier, Morocco.  What I remember most about Gibraltar was I had the best gorgonzola pasta I have ever had anywhere in a lovely outdoor cafe.  Strange that I remember that more than the Rock and the monkeys.  At the time of posting, this one day trip to Morocco is my only trip to the country and given all the things to see in the country I do not really consider myself having visited Morocco.  Tangier is like many border towns;   the city is more about getting elsewhere than staying put.  It is a gateway to Europe for many from all over Africa.  I did not like Tangier, something I very rarely say about a place.  But it was certainly an adventure.  

In Gibraltar, my friend P and I discover there is just one boat to Tangier a week, and that it departs on Fridays at 6 pm.  Well lo and behold it was a Friday around 3 pm.  So the information people give us a map and directions to the ticket office.  I was thinking we could just take a bus to the center of town, find the office, buy ours tickets, quickly take the funicular to the top of the Rock of Gibraltar, then back down, then hop on the boat and viola, we are in Tangier!  Unfortunately, few things work out like that.

It took us maybe 30 minutes to find the ticket office as we kept walking past it because the sign wasn’t very noticeable.  We go in and ask about the boat and they are all very friendly, but they inform us the boat is broken, but we can instead leave on Tuesday!  What would we do in Gibraltar all that time?  So, we ask if they have boats leaving from Algeciras in Spain and they say they do and give us a schedule.  We thank them and leave.

Just out the door P thinks we should ask how early before departure we should check in, so we return to ask.  When we explain we want to leave the next day, the guy scowls at us and tells us in an exasperated way that the boats are broken.  Seems the whole fleet is indisposed!  We ask about other boats and the guy gets indignant telling us they ONLY know about the schedules for THEIR boats.  <sigh>

We decide to leave the next morning and get a hotel in Gibraltar for the night because we have wasted so much time finding out about these broken boats.  We find a nice place, put our things down and head to the funicular but are waylaid by a very friendly local offering a tour of the Rock.  It appears his tour only cost three euros more than trying to go up ourselves and since things are spread out up on the rock, it would save us time.  We agree and are soon whisked into our very own van with our loquacious guide.  He keeps saying things like “girls” and “love” and the like to address us.  He talked a mile a minute, but I found overall it was a good tour, we learned a lot about Gibraltar (such as it was most likely an island before, because good ‘ole Chris Columbus said when he sailed by it, it was on the LEFT, meaning he sailed between the rock and Spain) and saw the Pillars of Hercules, part of the caves dug by chisel and dynamite when Spain tried to take Gibraltar during some historical juncture, and of course the monkeys.

The guide said we could have our photos taken with the monkeys on our shoulders.  I start to protest when suddenly a 30 pound monkey jumps on me and the guide orders P to get my camera and take my photo!  And before P knew it she too had a monkey friend and I was trying to take her picture.  However, as I was taking her picture I dropped something, leaned down to get it and another monkey was on me.  Ah, the amazing fun on top of the Rock!

The next morning we were up early and out of the hotel at 7 am to catch a bus to the border. Unfortunately, we discovered the buses did not start running until 8:30 am, so it being Gibraltar, and not a particularly large place, we started walking.  Once across the border and back in Spain, we caught a cab to Algeciras.  We made it to the terminal at 8:15, we think just in time to catch the 8:30 fast ferry, except no one wants to give us a straight answer.  We kept being told to go to this one counter to get the fast ferry, only to be told at that counter the ferry is broken.  So, we are sent to another window where we are told that it is now too late to make the 8:30 ferry.  So we pay for the 9:30 slow boat.  We change money, get some refreshments, and head up to the departure lounge.

The ferry is nothing special.  It plods along slowly, taking 2.5 hours to Tangier.  But when we arrive in Tangier and go down the gangplank, we discover we need an immigration stamp which was given on the boat, 15 minutes before we docked.  It was the garbled message reminiscent of drive thru windows made about 20-30 minutes before we docked.  We were not alone back in the ship awaiting the return of the police; there were maybe 40 of us.  We had to wait maybe another 45 minutes for the immigration police officer to return and get us all stamped, and then we were finally allowed to enter Tangier.

We made it through the gauntlet of “official tour guides” and taxi drivers, probably only because most of the boat had gotten off earlier and the majority of the mob had grown tired of waiting.  We had a humorous conversation with two port policemen about how to walk up to the medina.  It was only maybe a 10 minute walk, but they thought we should take a cab.  We found some accommodation for only 50 dirhams a night ($5).  A “helpful” Moroccan (I think “enterprising” is a better word) showed us to a Moroccan restaurant.  He insisted it was not touristy.  But the waiter very confidently, in good English explained the three course meal.  It turned out that the meal cost $12 per person.  We seriously doubted many locals frequented that place at that price.  So we found bread for 1 dirham and a coconut for 3 dirhams and we were fine.  We discovered our hotel room did not have a bathroom, and the only toilet was on the first floor, a rather smelly squatting affair.  But, we figured, ok, it was for only one night.

We explored the Medina for about an hour.  Then, we explored the new town and were rewarded with a McDonalds: cheap, recognizable food, a lovely view over the town, and nice toilets!  Yippee! (especially for the toilets)  We found an English cemetery.  We went back to the hotel.  After all the trouble to get to Tangier we were rather at a loss of what to do now that we were there.  An hour before the last call to prayer, the women and children came out into the streets, and so did we.  We got ice cream and explored the streets more and watched more people.  Then back to the hotel and more people watching from our balcony, then an early bed, because we wanted to catch the very first ferry out the next morning.  (Both of us we had already had our fill of Tangier).

Of course when we arrived at the ferry terminal the next morning, the first ferry, at 8:30, had been cancelled, and we had to take the 9:30!  We needed that one, because Moroccan time is 2 hours before Spanish time, so it was 11:30 in Spain when we left Morocco, and after a 2.5 hour trip, it was 2 pm in Spain.  My bus to Cordoba left at 3, P’s back to Granada at 4.  Somehow, by some miracle we both made our buses and I was off to Cordoba.