“Mice, Lice, and Asbestos”
East Tibet, Sichuan Region, China
5/30/05


Alas, our time in China is drawing to a close....we're going to miss the cheap prices, charismatic people, and side-stepping of spit globules on the sidewalks!

Perhaps I was a bit hasty when I spoke of how CLEAN China is. And perhaps I spoke a little too soon about how much I love the food here. After a month I have a more honest perspective of this country. Not overly romanticized, not overly jaded either. We've come to accept the condition of the toilets (from satisfactory to pretty dang nasty), the polluted air in the cities, the creative use of dog and fish eyes in the local cuisine, and the humidity in the lowlands in May. But it's been entirely worth it.....

We've returned from ten days driving and trekking in East Tibet, home of the Kham Tibetan warriors who are renowned for their horsemanship and use of bows and arrows. They're the cowboys of western Sichuan with their long black hair, strong builds, flowing furs, and silver daggers worn on their sashes.

We set out from Zhongdian, the border town between modern China and ancient Tibet. Where cowboys mix with yaks and motorcycles, where monks use cell phones, and where we shared a beautiful moment sharing a bag of BBQ potato chips with eight Tibetan grandmothers on a log under strings of prayer flags and a giant yawning blue sky. Zhongdian is the famed Shangri-La alluded to in James Hilton's novel, "Lost In Paradise." If you ask me, I don't think it's where Shangri-La was. James Hilton was either lost or really meant one of the villages and valleys further to the North.

Together with an Austrian woman, a British woman named Bridget, and a Dutchie named Michel, we hired Kevin, a Han Chinese guest house owner and driver with an SUV and bought several bags of noodles, tea, crackers, and chocolate. The next day, we set off for the North into and ascended the Tibetan Plateau with road heights averaging anywhere from 9,000 feet to 15,000 feet above sea level.

As we journeyed deeper into Tibet, the landscape shifted from steep pine forests and granite faces to large open expanses of landscapes of stone, snow, and grasslands that stretched deep into the horizon. The houses began as large two-story wooden homes with ornately designed windows--almost Moroccan in detail--and slanted roofs. We drove through high altitude villages (13,000 feet) where the local architecture shifted towards homes made of stone, prayer flags hoisted on each corner of the roof like castle turrets. Occasional mountainsides boasted giant stone graffiti in Tibetan letters spelling out the Buddhist Mantra, "Hail to the jewel of the lotus."

We traveled for four days to reach a special World Heritage Site called Yading where we rented horses for our bags and trekked along a sacred river to stay in the mountains near a monastery. Our little shack cost about $1 a night and was probably over-priced. We were surrounded by chickens, yaks, and horses and the beds were grungy at best but the view in the morning was phenomenal.

We awoke to a sun rising our the mountains and lighting up a giant meadow where long-haired yaks grazed alongside horses whose tails were braided with bright ribbons. Tibetan men and women--dressed in pink head dresses and wearing turquoise and coral jewelry--washed their faces in the river and walked through the forests in search of the famed "caterpillar fungus" which fetches a steep price in Asian medicine markets and has brought so much money into the area.

To our South was one of the three sacred mountains of the area which Tibetan pilgrims circumambulate with their prayer wheels and Buddhist beads. The weather in the mountains is mercurial and harsh. It would be hot and sweaty one minute and snowing ten minutes later. We visited a turqoise lake just below one of the glaciers...the only sound was an avalanche, wind, and a few birds.

The last night we stayed in the "chicken shack" I kept awakening to the sounds of mice and rats in the boards above my head. Once I finally fell asleep I was awoken again. This time to a reality and not a nightmare.

I could feel tiny little feet crawling across my eyes where my fleece hat was pulled over. By the time I was conscious enough to yelp, the mouse has made it across my face. I spent the rest of the night slapping at my blankets and cinching my sleeping bag around my neck.

"It can crawl across my face but I'll be damned if it makes it in my bag to spend the night!" I swore to myself.

In the morning, our British girlfriend Bridget started laughing when she saw me bump my head on the shack's roof and dust fell on my face.

"Have you guys noticed what our roof is made of?" she asked.

Mom and I looked up blankly-

"It's asbestos. If the bloody mice don't get you, then the asbestos will!" she laughed.

We were more than excited for showers and mice-free beds two days later.

Towards the end of our journey, we serendipitously landed in a town which was memorializing the death of a living Buddha. Yes, a dead living Buddha. Try translating that into English.

Thousands of different Tibetan groups were arriving by horse, tractor, and truck to pay their last respects to the man who had been the head llama of one of the region's most respected monasteries. We followed a river past grasslands where yaks were grazing and watched groups of men and women dressed in their finest attire cross the plateau on horseback. The women's hair braided with red ribbons, wearing long flowing robes and chunky turquoise earrings. The Tibetan men proudly wearing cowboy hats and long hand-crafted daggers. The horses were decorated with vivid carpets draped on their backs and bells and ribbons in their manes. Snow-capped mountains were the perfect visual backdrop to this exquisite scene of true nomads making a pilgrimage across the Tibetan grasslands.

One Khampa warrior raced his horse against a young guy on a motorcycle until he was overtaken by the dust and incomparable speed.

To me, it was the perfect vision of the clash in China between the ancient and the modern. The rush towards modernization. Instead of horses, many Tibetans are riding motorcycles now, the new steed of modern China.

From a hillside, we watched monks chanting beneath giant tents and lines of families waiting to prostrate and pray to the deceased living Buddha.

It's all so beautiful in images and words but it wouldn't be honest not to admit that the reality of life in Tibet is also harsh. The children have snot running down their noses like giant green caterpillars and people rarely bathe. Good dentistry is obsolete (though that's not disimilar from England). The streets are dusty and toilets are best avoided. The weather is mercurial. It's rainy and snowy and unforgiving. High altitude sickness and dehydration are daily challenges. Travel is rough and roads take you across several steep passes on a daily basis (from 9,000 to 15,000 feet).

It is not comfortable travel but, to us, it is entirely worth it.

After returning to the big city of Chengdu we traveled for the weekend to Xian, the ancient capital of China and home of the famed Terra Cotta Warriors--or the Eighth Wonder Of The World. We gorged on various and anonymous meats (one was chicken--I at least know that) on a stick, bowls of fresh watermelon, noodles, potstickers, and ice cream. We wandered through the Muslim Quarter shopping for tea and candied dried kiwi and nectarines. We watched a man hack apart a long spinal cord of some obscure animal and another guy weigh an armful of stomach linings.

Walking along a side street in China is not for the faint at heart.

Xian has a heartbeat of its own. It's lively and hip and balmy on summer nights. We walked across the main square beyond King Kong size billboards and watched dozens of people flying banners of kites. The strings were composed of miniature kites that stretched deep into the night sky where they disappeared into the darkness magically, as if suspended by some other invisible force on the other end.

On one of our last nights with our beloved Euro friends and our driver Kevin, we feasted at a Hot Pot Restaurant. Basically, a vegetarian's nightmare. But heaven to anyone who loves strange looking meat, hot food, and a social atmosphere.

Basically, the rules to eating Hot Pot are easy. One, you stack your plate with loads of food (frog legs, fish heads with eyeballs, bloody eels, chicken feet, and a few vegetables like potatoes, seaweed, and jicama) and you dump it into this boiling cauldron of oil and chili pepper that everyone sits around.

Secondly, you take a big drink of red wine or beer cause it supposedly makes you better with using chopsticks. Actually, this isn't true. At least for me. I dropped half of my food into mom's tea. All the frog legs, fish eyeballs, and vegetables churn around, soak up the juices of the hot pot and go swirling around the ring of boiling goo like an oceanic tempest. You eat whatever you can catch with your chopsticks. Then you lick your lips and go, "Hmmmm!" or you throw it on someone else's plate and say, "You really should try this, it has such an interesting crunch!"

Now, what I discovered is that if you drink a lot of Chinese wine and eat a lot of rice and make a couple of trips down to the local market for more bottles of cheap red wine, then most people, even the Chinese host, won't notice that you haven't eaten anything that was actually "cooked" in the hot pot. Which was the whole point of the dinner.

By the time, our meal was over, Bridget and I cared less about Hot Pot etiquette than we did before we started dinner. We started?quot;moonwalking" Jackson-style across the greasy floor of the restaurant and became embroiled in a brutal wedgie-war (she won, damnit! and I'm still sore) before the staff decided it was time to kindly throw us out and close the restaurant to anymore foreigners for the rest of the night.

Wisely, Mom and Kevin took a taxi back to the hotel while the four of us ambled into town in search of a discoteque. We managed to find one of the only English-speaking girls in the city who also wanted to go dancing. She whisked us down the street and into some funky little Chinese discoteque.

Before we knew it, we were drinking strange tea-flavored drinks, eating watermelon, and dancing barefoot on the stage with our new friends. By midnight, the music had switched from techno to Traditional Tibetan music and we were doing Tibetan line dancing with every Chinese guy and gal in the place. Behind us were video images of Tibetans dressed in traditional furs doing the danced in front of the Himalayan Mountains. We danced beneath hot strobe lights which made every one of our movements seem twice as complicated.

It was a surreal night. Very much like our entire experience here in China. Delightful and completely surprising.

I feel that we've only scratched the surface of this giant and incredibly diverse country. We're both anxious to return to this country. But for now, we have lived a lifetime in the past four weeks and we feel blessed for every moment of it!

We've also met such incredible friends on this journey. So many stories to share. Tonight we're off to eat Tex Mex food with our Dutchie friend Michel and pay tribute to our last night in China-

As Goethe once said or wrote or supposedly thought, "Whatever you dream of, do it. For boldness has magic and genius to it."

Something like that!

Goodbye and farewell crazy China!

Cheers, Rachel and her beloved Mamacita

“The Wild, Wild West Of Yunnan and Sichuan”
Southwest China
5/14/05

Greetings From Tibet-

We've made our way up to the fabled town of Shangri-La, known as Zhongdian on Chinese Maps. We're at over 10,000 feet on the Tibetan Plateau and surrounded by wide open space, a yawning blue sky, and a crescent of snow-capped mountains.

This is a strange place. Where the old world meets the new world. Where the Chinese communist government and pressure to build new roads and new hotels clashes with the ancient way of the Tibetans. A collision of cultures and centuries. Part of the town is ugly and concrete and windswept but just a few steps outside of town and one runs into old Tibetan women in ancient dress and monks in burgundy robes.

We took a bus for 10 cents up to one of the largest Buddhist monasteries of Southwest China yesterday, climbing up the foothills to an even higher altitude. I was suffering from a bit of altitude sickness stumbling my way along the path and bumbling about with my camera unable to think straight or form complete sentences. Having altitude sickness is a little bit like being drunk...only without all the happy side effects.

We came to a large gompa built to represent the 13 steps to enlightenment and watched a Khampa Tibetan man carving Tibetan prayers into a slab of stone. The Tibetans here are called "Khampa," the famed warriors of East Tibet. The men are gifted horsemen and wear daggers on their belts. They are the ones who fought a fierce battle against the Chinese when the communist govt. took over Tibet. It is the Khampas who some other Tibetans fear for their fierce natures and physical build. The men and women are taller than other Chinese and have broad shoulders and thick black hair the color of ravens.

We walked beneath strands of shredded prayer flags fluttering in the mountain wind sending prayers off into the heavens on the backs of "wind horses," messengers of the sky.

A group of eight older Tibetan woman sat along a log chattering away as women do. They wore bright pink headscarves, long robes, and giant chunks of silver and turquoise jewelry. One of them motioned to mother and I and our Austrian friend to sit with them and share their space. I shared a bag of BBQ potato chips with the row of women, each of them cupping their hands and thanking us in Tibetan. Their faces were dark and handsome and deeply wrinkled from their years in the mountains. Their hands thick and strong. I wondered how many children they had seen born and how many children and grandchildren they'd raised....the countless baskets of wood they'd carried through the hills, the bread they'd made, and the loved ones they'd seen die through their lifetimes. They were completely beautiful.

Mother and I stood up to try to speak a couple of words to them in Tibetan. We started with "We are from America." Apparently, our pronunciation was a bit off because the women stayed silent and looked rather blank.

We tried again and this time two of the women winced painfully as if we'd just sung a Celine Dion song off key.

At last, they motioned it was time to go. Two of the women lifted our backpacks onto our backs as if they were full of feathers. We walked along the road with them until they headed in another direction towards their village.

The monastery's golden-leafed roof glimmered in the afternoon light and a cool breeze made the windchimes echo through the sky above us. We walked through the halls, the walls painted vividly with Buddhist deities in vibrant golds, blues, reds, and greens.

We lit incense and made prayers at one of the altars. A couple of monks noticed I couldn't stop sneezing from the dust and wind._The youngest one_pulled out a small glass jar and tapped a brown powder onto his thumbnail motioning me to take some and snort it through my nose.

Of course, curiosity overcame me and I tried it. It hit me hard with a sharp, pleasant strike to the right nasal cavity. "Hun hao!" I said with delight. "Very good!" He poured more onto my thumbnail, making sure to keep me from taking too much. It couldn't be_THAT illegal if a monk was offering it to me, right? _I snorted it again begging mom to try some, too. She'd already learned her lesson when she tried the last anonymous herb on our trek. She wasn't about to snort some strange looking powder up her nose.

A chinese woman told me later that it was tobacco home-grown by the monks. How they get the tobacco into such a tiny little bottle is a mystery to me.

We're headed to the North from here, deeper into the heart of East Tibet with a group of four other travelers (from Austria, U.K., and the Netherlands) and an English-speaking Chinese driver. We'll be throwing all of our bags onto the roof of the 4-wheel drive vehicle and cramming ourselves into the back.

We hope to drive through the mountains up to 15,000 feet and through the Tibetan grasslands where nomadic Tibetans will be camped with their mastiffe guard dogs.

From there, we'll head to Chengdu.

Adieu to you all,

Cheers, Rachel and her mum

“Return from Tiger Leaping ‘Kick Your Ass’ Gorge”
Tiger Leaping Gorge, Yunnan, Southwest China
5/11/05

Ni hao!

We've just returned from several days trekking through Tiger Leaping Gorge...a world heritage site in the Sichuan Province. It's around 30 miles long (can't remember for sure) and is framed by the majestic, snow-capped Jade Dragon Mountain and Snow Mountain. The Yangze river has been cutting a deep cleft into the heart of the granite gorge so immense that Jade Dragon Mountain rises nearly 9,000 feet above the river.

We trekked several thousand feet above the river at around 6-7,000 feet altitude. May is a gorgeous time of the year to be in the mountains. There were wildflowers and stands of bamboo throughout the walk....waterfalls and streams cutting across our path and herds of goats. We passed through small Naxi villages where men and women dug up potatoes and farmed wheat and strawberries. This area of Sichuan is home to the Naxi people....distant Tibetan ancestors who live at around this elevation and are matrilineal....all land and family names are passed down through the women.

Mother and I had heard from other backpackers that the trek would be difficult but we have to admit that we felt rather cocky about our trekking ability after several tours of duty in the Nepalese Himalayas during the winter.

All I have to say is this: Tiger Leaping Gorge kicked our asses. A kind Naxi man shadowed us as we made our way deeper into the gorge and further up the side of the mountain. He trailed a large mule behind him draped in bells and a Tibetan-style red, blue, and yellow carpet thrown over its back. he kept offering to take us by mule or take our bags my mule.

"Wo bao- Wo bao," I kept telling him. "I don't want it."

By lunch there was only a thin line between my pride and the donkey's back. It was mom that made the brave decision. Right after a scrumptious soup of fresh pumpking and potatoes she leapt up, walked proudly over to another Naxi man and said in her own form of sign language...."I'm ready for the donkey!"

An Austrian woman and I eyed each other over our bowls of soup. "I'll hire one for my backpack if you will," I told her. She smiled mischievously. "Alright...but only if you do. There's no sense in being miserable for this....for the cost of a cup of coffee in Switzerland."

Thanks to mom we hired a mule to carry our backpacks which is about the same thing as hiring a porter in Nepal. The hiking still kicks your ass. In my backpack was several days worth of clothes, two pairs of shoes, a 40-gig hard drive, converters, cords, and my SLR camera.

We continued on after lunch and the terrain became steeper and steeper. More men with donkeys continued to follow us motioning that they could carry us over the treacherous "28 bends" ascent for the small price of $5.

Hell no!

After 7.5 hours of hiking and a lunch, we made it to one of the most beautiful tea houses we've ever stayed in. Situated in the very heart of the gorge several thousand feet above the river but dwarfed by Jade Dragon Mountain was a Naxi-run guesthouse named "Halfway House." Either the name was lost in translation or the trek makes foreigners go a little mad. We sure as hell didn't see many Chinese tourists trekking it.

Our room cost $3.75 for the night and had super comfy beds with clean sheets and quilts and a wooden framed window that looked directly towards the face of the vertiginous giant stretching skywards. The body of Jade Dragon Mountain filled the entire view through our window and below were the fields of Naxi farmers.

We stayed up late that night watching the stars appear in the sky feasting on beef noodle soup and hot ginger tea. For breakfast we ate muesli and yogurt, homemade apple pancakes, and more hot tea.

One of the girls who worked there brought out a plastic cup full of dried herb seeds and stems and motioned for us to eat it. The canadian guy with us--Roan--and I both tried it. We thought it was harmless and couldn't figure out what it was. It had no familiar taste or smell. When mom came to breakfast I pushed the cup towards her...

"What's that?" she asked.

"I don't know...they told us to eat it."

She chewed on it for a while and made a funny face.

Much to mother's surprise, we found out last night that it was the leftover pot supply from some of the euro trekkers before us.

We met several wonderful other travelers on this trek. It's amazing the connection that backpackers can make when we're out in the world travelling. We spent a couple of days with a Canadian 19-year old guy named Roan and a Swiss woman who's a specialist in Russian Literature and is headed up to take the Trans-Siberian railroad.

We also befriended a hilarious pair of guys traveling together...a South African guy named George who's been living in Taiwan and speaks Chinese and a Dutchie marine Biologist named Michele. After accidentally eating some of their pot supply for breakfast, mum and I made our way further down the gorge and stayed at the last guest house.

We met an even larger group of trekkers that night many of whom had walked all the way through the gorge just to buy good pot from the couple who owned the tea house. I couldn't figure out why we were all so giggly during dinner until I realized that all 8 of the people at the nearby table had been smoking up for the past three hours.

We feasted on pizza made with catsup for a red sauce, mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, noodles, homemade bread. Ten of us gathered around the table...made of a giant slab of granite...and enjoyed our dinner looking out across miles of gorge that will all be flooded in less than five years. Aussies, English, Americans, Israelis, South African, and an Austrain. Together we communed under the stars and enjoyed one of those magical nights of laughter and silliness that can only occur in the middle of nowhere with fellow travelers.

A good friend once said, "traveling is magical...it makes you live moment to moment and always be in the present." It's truly amazing how close you can feel to others who we hike with or share meals with out here. Many whom we've met are traveling around the world for a year or three months. Our one month trip is quite short in comparison.

After dinner and more stories, i joked about the pot smokers and how mom doesn't even drink alcohol...growing up Quaker. George, the South African, used his charm and cunning to convince my mother that beer would taste better mixed with sprite.

Seizing the opportunity before mum could protest, he hailed one of the staff and had poured her a cup full of beer and sprite in less than fifteen seconds.

I thought the stuff tasted god awful and figured she would, too but when he gave her the cup she didn't stop drinking until it was gone. She licked her lips and grinned big. "That was pretty good!"

We returned to old towne Lijiang last night and shared dinner with new friends at a Tibetan restaurant.

Random things happen in China. A jovial...and i mean JOVIAL!...chinese man walked to our table with two crickets crafted from bamboo leaves and began singing chinese opera. When he learned that one of our group was Dutch he sang a song in Dutch, then French, English and Spanish.

We wandered along the stone walkway with a Dutch friend after dinner past little tables lit by red lanterns and along the tiny canals and footbridges leading into restaurants. We walked past a bamboo-constructed bar where drunk chinese tourists attempted to dance to Shaggy's "Wind Your Body" and past another bar where a Naxi man serenaded two chinese girls with a guitar and a folk song. Several men gathered around a giant Tibetan bull horn which stretched all the way from the restaurant across the canal to our side of the street.

Funny things happen here. We've been given so many gifts. A shop owner offered us hot black tea and presented mother and i with tiny rings made of elephant hair. A wood carver gave me a hand-burnt gourd with Chinese lettering and a sweet couple from the Ganzou province just gave me two apples at the bus station.

People give with their hearts here and rarely expect anything back. I continue to be impressed by the Chinese people as well as the Naxi. Their sincerity, good humor, curiosity and patience. I hope to study Chinese at some point in the coming years.

We've met few other travelers who don't know Chinese.

From here we're heading to the fabled Shangri-La. A Tibetan town at the edge of the Tibetan plateau called Zhongidan. We'll see monks and monasteries, yaks and mules, giant eagles, prayer wheels, and wide open space.

From there we hope to rent a car and driver to take us deep into the heart of East Tibet, the region of Kham. A place noted for the fierce Tibetans who are incredible horsemen and wear daggers on their belts. These are the Tibetans who fought a fierce battle against the Chinese when they invaded Tibet several decades ago.

We've met several other travelers--three women from Austria, the u.k., and Connecticut, and the guy from Holland, who are interested in splitting expenses so we can go further into Tibet.

I'll try to email when I get the chance but I have a feeling there will be a shortage of internet cafes North of here.

Adieu to you all!
If you're thinking of quitting your jobs to travel....then do it!

There are so many people out here on this "circuit" who are free in the world following their hearts. I hope that each of you do, too...whatever that may mean-

much love,
Rachel and her Mamacita

"Land Of The Red Lantern"
Chengdu, China
5/5/05

We've arrived safely in China. Besides my mother being rather stingy with our shared supply of toilet paper, she and I have been getting along smashingly...

The first thing I have to say is this: I never wanted to go to China. I hated the food. I hated the sound of the language. And I thought the whole country would be filthy and loud and smelly and filled with animal markets where people were feasting on giant legs of dog.

My stereotypes have been completely shattered.

When we arrived in Chengdu, the capital city of the Sichuan Province, we were blown away by how CLEAN all the streets are. They're swept daily. There's no trash whatsoever. And aside from the nasty habit of spitting and clearing throats, the Chinese are very clean. The people have been so incredibly kind and curious and good-humored. No one hassles us or begs us for money or begs us to go stay at their hotel. Or if they do, I can't understand them. We also happened upon a long street filled with pet stores stocked with puppies, kittens, turtles, snakes, and buckets of Koi fish.

I guess they only eat the ugly dogs.

We spent the first couple of days walking through the streets of Chengdu following the river and walking beneath the shade of weeping willows past groups of old men playing ma jong. We sat and drank tall glasses of hot tea. The tea in China is lovely...hot water poured over two inches of fresh green tea leaves or orange lily leaves that dance through the water like koi. We spent six hours on an epic search for a %&*@ noodle shop that we never found. Everything is in Chinese and hardly anyone speaks English here. During our first couple of days, we saw about ten Westerners in total out of thousands of people that we came across. Reading a map in Chinese is impossible. We just wander around until we see a cool place to check out.

Because we never could find the %*@ noodle shop, we tried every other food we came across. We bought shish kebabs of strange looking meat and vegetables that a man dipped into a hot vat of oil and smeared with loads of chili peppers and herbs....jicama, something like an eggplant, tofu (we think or really, really odd looking cheese), chicken, pork, potatoes. We ate steamed dumplings filled with pork and spices, pita bread sandwiches filled with chicken, plates of noodles sauteed in peanut oil with slivers of peppers and onions.

The strangest thing we ordered was a glass of some brown liquid that tasted like slightly warm, watered down coffee. At the bottom of the glass were these large purple, fish-egg looking things that we slurped up through a fat straw. Mucilagenous little tasteless suckers.

Before leaving Chengdu we made our way to a Panda Breeding Reserve. Again, blown away. I thought the preserve would be depressing and cramped. We walked through long stretches of bamboo stands along immaculate pathways and came within several feet of full grown pandas lying on their backs munching on fat stalks of bamboo like crunchy celery.

I have to admit I cried when I saw the first panda pair. They're the most beautiful, comical creatures. There was nothing between us except a two foot high wooden fence and a small ditch. They groaned and purred and scratched their backs. Their black and white fur is absolutely gorgeous. We watched the six month old babies tumbling along and wrestling with each other. They're about the size of a furry wombat. One of the babies decided that he only wanted to go places backwards. He'd turn around check out his destination and then start backing up towards it. We watched him go up a ladder backwards and roll onto his back only to turn around and do the whole thing again. Backwards.

We've made our way to the south, to northern Yunnan. We're in an ancient historical city called Lijiang which has, not surprisingly, been named a World Heritage Site for its preservation of Chinese culture and history. The ancient town (situated at 10,000 feet) is composed of intimate little walkways along canals lined with weeping willows. The stone pathways lead between stores and shop fronts with giant, red carved wooden doors. We're staying at a hotel with one of the best preserved courtyards in the old town. Our wood carved doors swing open onto the most exquisitely cinematic view I could have imaged. A square courtyard lined with hanging red lanterns, giant wooden carved designs on the pagoda style building. The courtyard is open air and filled with giant orchids, cycads, and a bonsai tree. We're awoken in the morning by the happy chatter of the hotel staff cooking and scrubbing the floors. The scene is so surreal when we push our doors open that I keep expecting a movie crew to be out there filming Tom Cruise in a samurai sword fight or Jackie Chan leaping over a table.

At night, the town glows a lovely red from the countless lanterns hanging outside of the stores. The stream runs beneath small wooden bridges and I've heard there's a part of the canal where they set candles afire and float them along the water.

We're headed to trek Tiger Leaping Gorge tomorrow for the next couple of days. The Yangze River has cut a deep gorge through the mountains here between Jade Dragon Mountain and Snow Mountain. It's famed to be one of the most picturesque treks in China (outside of Tibet). Incredibly steep terrain. We'll be hiking between villages along the high path which takes us several thousand feet above the Yangze River. Northern Yunnan is home to the Naxi (pronounced "Nashee") ethnic group who are loosely related to the Tibetans north of here. The Naxi farm in this are and are a uniquely matrilear culture...i.e. all land and names are passed down through the women.

From here we'll be heading North onto the Tibetan Plateau. Our accomodations will become more rustic (toilets are basically holes in the ground. You squat, you go, you wipe, you rinse it all down with a bucket water) and the weather more harsh.

We're exceedingly happy with China and we're both practicing our Chinese on a daily basis...."I'm hungry. That was yummy. Where's the toilet, please?" etc.

Until the next internet opportunity....adieu!

We had omelettes, cucumber salad with chilis and garlic, and chocolate crepes for breakfast. We're headed to see a Naxi music concert tonight.

Now we're ready to TREK!

much love,
Rachel and her beloved Mamacita

"Mojitos In Praha"
Prague, Czech Republic
Monday, June 14th, 2004

In the past when we've asked about impressions of Prague, people's eyes light up as if in love, "Ahh, Prague, it is a magical place." They sigh longingly and look lost in blissful memories too private to be vocalized. A wise Croatian Man told us many weeks ago, "Prague...it is so ALIVE! There is everything there...whatever you like it is there!" He leaned over to my mother and winked, "but you must be careful with you daughter. There are many men there, many very hungry men."

And so we find ourselves at the end of our journey in a city of extremes. One of the most magnificently preserved cities in all of Europe....a labyrinth of cobblestone streets, sidewalk cafes sending the fragrances of Middle Eastern, Italian, French, Mexican, and Czech cuisine into the dusky atmosphere, tiny alleyways which lead into courtyards where you might lose yourself for days, giant clocks, bridges which span ancient rivers and all around men, women, and drunken monsters from every corner of the Western World, gothic cathedrals thrusting spires up into the sapphire sky as if waiting for the arrival of Dracula himself, giant plazas the size of Olympic Stadiums that stretch on for an eternity....and music you've never even known existed.

For this is a city of extremes. Years ago, Prague was on the verge of discovery. Virgin territory just liberated from an oppressive Soviet Occupation, a place where poets and painters came to lose themselves and to be forgotten by the rest of the world. Today, Prague is no virgin city. She's a promiscuous Goddess of European excess and she's not only embracing tourism, she's fornicating with it publicly. On any given night in the central plaza, we see punk rockers taking drags from each other's cigarettes as they drive horse-drawn carriages through the streets, a Hare Krisna parade with men and women chanting and banging on drums, hoardes of tourists taking photos of the giant clocktower, go-go dancers shakin' their asses to "Shaggy" in a barfront window, an old man in a forgotten alleyway singing Elvis Presley songs in Czech, and countless drunken 'stag' parties (bachelor party) bellowing their way through the plaza with bottles of beer in hand and dragging mates of theirs clinging to consciousness.

Prague is a city that never sleeps. A city that one wants to suck dry. Like the last dregs of a tasty mojito, when the ice melts and mixes with the mint and sugar after you think the drink is really gone but the best part has yet to begin. Prague is like this. One never tires of watching it transform into darkness and a new midnight light...through the red hot heat and past the mercurial thunderstorms which begin faster than one can open an umbrella. It's light here at 5 in the morning and remains a cobalt blue well past 10 p.m. We're as far North as Canada. This city is like a cross between Las Vegas and Edinborough, Scotland on a Saturday night and all set in this magnificent landscape of the wildest European imagination. It defies explanation and expectation. It is an urban zoo of human behavior and a fulcrum of artistic inspiration.

One never knows what one will see next. A beautiful symphony or a debaucherous act.

Yesterday afternoon, we were startled by the sound of metal exploding against rock. We turned to see a group of drunken Scotsmen ripping a 40 pound street sign from it's base and parading through the plaza cheering, "We saw the sign! We saw the sign! And now we have the sign!" From the center came the star of the party. A tall, lanky dark-haired lad with a chain connecting his wrist to his ankle like an animal and the back of his pants where his cheeks are were missing, leaving a perfect view of his skinny ass hanging out in tight black speedos. The pant-less man hopped sideways among frightened groups of tourist hooting like a monkey while his mates waved the street sign back and forth. "We have the sign! We saw a sign!"

Mom and I just stood and stared with our mouths open for a few minutes before we even spoke:

"They really have bad hangovers, huh?" Mom said under her breath.

"Mom, they're drunk."

"They are? How do you know?" she looked shocked. She was born in Indiana to a family and a religion that forbids alcohol. She's been spared both the pleasure and pitfalls of alcohol for her entire life.

"Mom, any straight guy who's wearing a chain connecting his wrist to his ankle and missing the ass of his pants walking through a public square with his mates....well, he's gotta be drunk."

"Ohhh, I thought it was a hangover," she said, processing these new behaviors of debauchery.

"No, that's not how people with hangovers behave."


We decide to do something sophisticated so we buy tickets for Vivaldi's "Four Seasons," a favorite of both of ours. By some stroke of luck and a bit of charm, we're led to the front row by a super cute Czech girl (even though we bought the cheapest tickets possible) who takes a liking to us. Mom and I are rather sweaty from the day's sightseeing and dressed in sandals and hiking shoes lugging backpacks and water bottles. Elegant French Women wearing pearls, fancy Italian shoes, silky lipstick and smelling of jasmine sit around us. Sophisticated types that make us slink a little lower in our seats.

The orchestra is two feet in front of us and when they begin playing it is magnificent and thunderous and passionate and ecstatic and the most sexual classic music I have ever heard. I looked down and my arms were covered in goosebumps. Even the usually reticent violinists and cellists were overcome by Vivaldi's vision closing their eyes at times and smiling like fat cats in the sun. It's music that overtakes you, grabs your heart and hurls it out into the ethosphere and then draws you in again like a kite catching the wind.

And then in walked the cello soloist.

He was a tall man, a rather large man, with dark greasy hair pulled behind in a pony-tail typical of poets and wearing a coal-black jacket with coattails. He took a grand bow and waved his bow before ceremoniously taking his seat. When he played his whole body became possessed. It was overtly sexual and much too intimate.

I had to look away.

His face beaded with perspiration, strands of his hair fell forward from where they were chastely tucked behind his ear, his eyes closed half way as if in the throes of ecstasy...he vibrated with the cello and his face turned crimson as if he were holding his breath. Strange noises came from within him through his half-open mouth, a mouth which seemed to have just finished kissing a woman and had forgotten she was no longer kissing back.

This was much too intimate a thing to see. I tried to focus on the string section but my eyes kept going back to him.

As he continued to play we noticed that the other musicians were exchanging looks with one another, looks of amusement, confusion, and then of annoyance. He seemed to be playing a cello that was out of key. A cello with not enough depth to fill the concert hall. We became more amused by the cellist's strange erotic behavior and the drama among the musicians embarrassed by him than we did with Vivaldi's masterpiece.

It was a symphony of cacophony.

The cellist refused to finish. Whenever he would take a bow after our applause he would pretend to leave and then come running back and start a new song. In all, he played 4 complete Encores. Encores not chosen by the audience. He would take magnificent bows and posture his broad frame like a peacock ruffling its feathers. He beamed, he radiated, he inhabited his own universe of self-love. He and his sad under-performing cello.

After the 5th! performance, the orchestra shuffled out with more speed than is fitting of a string section before the cellist could return for another performance. We clapped with absolute relief.

On our way home we decided to stop for hot chocolate a hot rum drink. Mom thought she might try giving alcohol a chance. (After all, if it could get you to wear a chain connecting your wrist to your ankle, imagine what a small nightcap might do to a Hoosier who hasn't had alcohol her whole life.)

She winced and nearly spit out the rum.

In some blur of miscommunication and confused accents, we were absorbed by the next table of past-drunk Welsh Woman waiting for their husbands to return from watching a Rugby Match. When the men came upstairs they surrounded us and in their thick accents introduced themselves. Mom encouraged me to sing a Salt n'Pepa rap for them that was less than successful. They looked as blank as a herd of sheep before a chalkboard of math equations. I might have well been singing in Swahili.

"Wanna hear me Tom Jones Version?!" the largest husband asked excitedly.

"Oh yes, Yes! You must do that," the wives clapped and cheered him on.

By half past midnight, the eight of them were singing a medley of the Beatles, Tom Jones, and some vaguely familiar Welsh Anthem in both Welsh and in English for our benefit.

"Won't you have a beer with us?" they'd chide my mother every 30 seconds.

"No, I don't drink alcohol," she'd defer.

"Then a rum! She'll have a rum! Waiter bring us a rum"

"No, really, I'm okay."

"Well how about a beer then?"

"No, really, thankyou."

"Well, anything with alcohol for bloody hell! How could you go through life like this?!" one of the wives lamented. As if my mother's salvation rested in a good lager.

My mother offered "Glennys" some of her chocolate cake.

"God no!" She wrinkled her nose as if she were looking at a bowl of eyeball soup instead of a succulent slice of dark chocolate cake, "Isn't there any alcohol in it?"

Mom shook her head apologetically.

Glennys went back to her drink feeling a failure for not having converted my mother to the "Welsh Religion" of alcohol.

This morning we see grafitti in a women's restroom stall. A desperate girl writes, "PRAGUE IS AN EVIL CITY. DON'T LOSE YOURSELF IN IT."

The Welsh are pretty good at it.
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And so we bid adieu to a city of extremes and of midnight skies that linger. We say goodbye to the sweltering islands of Southern Dalmatia and the shimmering lakes of Slovenjia. It has been a magnificent trip and my mother, 'Mojamama' in Slavic, has been the ideal travel partner. We hope that you're each having adventures of your own and that you milk this summer dry! (Like a big fat can of YooHoo.)

much love, Rachel and her beloved "Mojamama" Karen

"Smitten With Slovenia"
western Slovenia
Monday, June 7th, 2004

Okay, before this next update I MUST thank a couple of you for making this all possible...thankyou to Peter Kozodoy for suggesting a trip to Croatia over dinner with mom, thankyou to my sweetheart, Doug Crane, for supporting me and understanding me everytime I need to go off and have adventures (at least once a year!), and a big thankyou to Andrea and Sylvia for demanding that we go to Slovenia and for introducing us to their cousin Andrej!
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For starters, I think we'll be coming back to Slovenia again for sure. About a week ago we headed North from the bottom of Croatia and took a 24 hour ferry along the length of the Adriatic Sea up towards Slovenia. Mom and I decided through travelers' boredom that we'd go ahead and drink our bottles of Croatian Lemon Liquor to pass the time. We started to swig it straight from the bottle by the time we were on the train into Slovenia. We were packed into a little train car with two Aussies and a well-traveled Kiwi Firefighter who had just been trekking in Kyzirgistan and taken the Trans-Siberian Railway across the length of Russia with a girlfriend, a good book, and not enough alcohol.

We opened our hearts and our lives up to each other within a matter of hours as travelers do and in a flash at one of the train stops they were gone in a blur of backpacks and whistles of the train.

When we arrived in Lujblijana (dam, I always misspell it) we called up Andrea's cousin Andrej for suggestions and he's been taking care of us ever since. We're staying on the Western Edge of Slovenia along Lake Bled and he lives in Lujblana (there it is again!). He's a bit like Peter Kozodoy only really tall and with a Slovenian accent. He's an engineer, incredibly patient, generous, and he never says 'no' to mom and I which we really like! We're smitten with him. Mom keeps asking him, "Andrej, do you have a much older brother or a single uncle you could introduce me to?" He keeps blowing us away with gifts of chocolate, music, park entrance fees.

Slovenia is stunning and charming. Like a miniature Switzerland. This tiny country is lush and verdant and resplendent with tiny villages and homes with flowers spilling from the gardens and windows. Half of it is virgin forest of pine, sycamore, beech, maple. The Northwestern corner shares the Julian Alps with Italy. We're rented this fairy tale little chalet with kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and living room that looks out over a garden, a meadow of wild lupine, daisies, and queen anne's lace and the snow-capped mountains. On sunny days the air smells like fresh cut grass, flowers, and has the coolness of a breeze blowing off the local lake.

We were stunned when we walked down the hill toward Lake Bled to behold a tiny forested island with a tall Cathedral poking out from a canopy of trees. On the edge of the lake silhouetted against the mountains is a several thousand foot jagged cliff with a castle perched on its edge like a scene out of Van Helsing or Dracula. Little rowboats carry visitors across the lake to the island where they can ring a sacred bell and profess their lifelong love to each other. Ancient Slavs once worshipped the Goddess of Love and Fertility on this island. No matter how many photos one sees of this place, nothing compares to the reality of looking upon it for the first time. The castle and the lake's moods change with the setting sun and storms passing overhead like a living painting. It's truly a romantic landscape in every sense of the word. (Happy 3 Year Anniversary Sweetheart!)

So what have we been doing here, anyway?
On the first night we had an exquisite dinner with Andrej (no, he hasn't ever heard of the movie) with fine crystal and china and cloth napkins. I didn't know how to behave with all the fine cutlery! fresh slices of carrots and celery with a horseradish cream sauce, peppery Veal and noodles, rolls of baked chicken stuffed with bacon and onions set in a creamy leak sauce, penne pasta with fresh basil, tomatoes, mozzarella and smoked eggplant, roasted cream of asparagus soup, fresh crusty bread, and for dessert...buttery chocolate crepes, chocolate souffle with fresh strawberries, creme de caramel flan, and chocolate mousse with a dollop of mint sauce. Okay, so that's a couple of meals. We're definitely NOT going to lose weight on this trip. With every good meal we have, we take another step further away from the dream of returning to the developing world. We're turning soft, man! Cloth napkins?!! For god's sake! I don't eat this well this often in Santa Barbara. (Although I do miss Mexican food all you PPSB gang...I'm dreaming of enchiladas and chilaquiles and beans)

This past weekend we've visited one of the largest limestone caves in Europe (as opposed to all those granite caves!) and saw tiny Ë_human fish,Ë_ blind albino cave salamanders which live 50! years and can go up to 5 years without eating by lying really, really still.

I don't think I can go 5 hours without eating. They must be really, really slow little buggers.

Also visited one of the world's most famous Stud Farms for the Lipizaner Horses that are famed to be from Southern Slovenia. Our tour guide spoke proudly of their heritage coming from a mix with 'Italian Stallions,' An English woman and I couldn't help snorting in the back of the group. We'd seen quite a few Balkan Stallions of our own here on our travels. I think the joke was missed on our guide though.

The greatest highlight so far however has been catching an outdoor summer music festival concert with Eliades Ochoa from the Buena Vista Social Club here in Lujblllannannan, how ever the hell you write it. For only 17 bucks, we saw an Italian A Capella Men's Choir, Eliades Ochoa and his full band complete with percussionists, stand-up bass, back-up vocals and guitarists, and horn section....and! a very famous Serbian Brass Band (10 of them) with a guest artist, one of the most famous Gypsy Singers from Eastern Europe and her accordion player. I know it sounds all rather eclectic and it was and it was wonderful.

How surreal to hear all the languages spoken yet we understood each other...

The Italian Group addressed the packed and jubilant audience in Italian, French, and broken Slovenian. Eliades Ochoa addressed us in Spanish which we translated to Andrej into English, and the Serbian Brass Band spoke and played in Serbian, Croatian, and a Gypsy Language which Andrej translated for us from Serbian into Slovenian and then into English.

The Cuban music was rich and full and absolutely moving...I started plotting a trip in my mind to the island, it was like seeing the Buena Vista Social Club in its entirety only surrounded by a bunch of Slovenians who couldn't understand any of the lyrics. But the highlight was the brass band and all of its riotous energy. The lead trumpet player had us all kicking and screaming and singing 'lalallallalalalal' out of key and then cheering as the older Gypsy singer took the microphone. She was no taller than 5 feet and a little bit rounder in width. Dressed in a long dress and head scarf in red and gold, she grinned and laughed and wailed and shimmied her little Balkan Buddha Belly back and forth across the stage. One of the horn players kneeled on the stage out of respect as he played to her and it was obvious that her presence and performance there was an absolute honor to several thousand Slovenians. I looked all around us at the mix of Slovenians, Croatians, Serbs, Italians, Germans, and French and thought of how magical the power is of music and how, despite all the languages spoken there, it was the energy of the music that we all understood and that united us. Thousands of us were kicking and screaming and jumping and laughing and grinning wildly. If only we could remember this energy....in Iraq, in Former Yugoslavia, in America and around the world.

Andrej drove us home around 2:30 in the morning. I don't think mom has been out that late in years. She and I stayed up a while more gorging ourselves on the only chocolate bar we had left and revelling in the magic of the night.

We'll be heading to Prague soon but for now, we're lingering in the magic of Slovenia. That night before the concert, I was walking through the wet streets of the city and looked up to see a vivid rainbow set against the steel grey sky and arcing over the Lubjliana Castle.

'This is a good omen,' I smiled to myself.

I hope you all have similar rainbows in your skies over the next week. I know that magic happens everywhere around us. It's sometimes easier to be open to it on vacation but it is there all the time if we'd only open up to it.

much love, Rachel and Mamacita

"From The Inner Walls Of Dubrovnik"
Dubrovnik, Croatia (Dalmatian Region)
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2004

We're retreating from the rain inside a Croatian Bar listening to an odd mix of Bruce Springsteen and Muddy Waters in the old city of Dubrovnik. There seems to be no genre distinction on radio stations here in Hrvatska.

Not to be cliche, but Dubrovnik is probably one of the most gorgeous cities in the world and reminds me of walking through the inside plaza of "The Venetian" in Las Vegas. (It's disgusting that the only cultural and architectural comparison I can make to it in the United States is in downtown Las Vegas). The entire city, situated on the edge of the Adriatic, is surrounded by the world's third largest wall (The Great Wall of China being the first) and yields its secrets only after entering the giant gates where a drawbridge once stood. The car-less streets are all made of marble and the buildings and alleyways are solid carved stone, lanterns swinging above each corner. The sky on most days is painted blue and cloudless, sparrows screeching in circles overhead like bats at sunset and hundreds of people from around the world passing below the clocktower and circling the fountains, sipping coffee and eating pastries along the sidewalk cafes. children chasing pigeons and shouting in Croatian, French, German, Italian...how amazing that they can understand each other. Even the cats seem to "Meow" with exotic accents.

We walked the length of the fortress walls earlier this week and let me tell you, it's a long ass wall. It felt like we were walking the Great Wall of China only it was super hot and everybody was speaking Croatian and German.

Yesterday we took a boat to a local island named Mljet (named "Honey" by the Greeks for all the delicious sweet stuff gleaned from its shores) and honored by National Geographic as one of "The Top Ten Most Beautiful Islands in the World." The writer must have traveled there on a sunny day.

We spent much of the day sheltering ourselves from the rain under tiny umbrellas and sipping cups of hot chocolate with a sassy Australian named Kat. Bad weather often yields the funniest and most unforgettable moments. Though we saw very little of the lush island, the lunch we had there will forever stand out in my memory...

Deprived of t.v. and radios, slow days and bad weather leaves my mother and I to our only tool of entertainment: my video camera. We sat at a small cafe on the edge of the sea playing with a catsup bottle, a giant rainbow-colored beetle, and a rather greasy french fry. I began doing impressions of the "Crocodile Hunter" in a rather shoddy Australian Accent: "Behold how the ravenous pomme fritte-eating poison Croatian Beetle stalks its' food and descends upon its prey with its' fearsome mandibles, Behold how its' prey (we shake the french fry) quivers at the siight of its terrifying predator." To our surprise, the beetle stepped up to its role as a deadly french fry-eating insect and began devouring the french fry and fighting me for it in an unfairly weighted battle. Two uptight French Sailors at a table next to us sipped on their soup and tried to ignore us.

Moments later, a rather boisterous French and Croatian-speaking Family stepped off their sailboat and walked into the restaurant.

What followed in conversation will go down as the greatest linguistic social faux pas in the history of the civilized world. Thanks to my mother.

Now first, a little lesson in the language in Croatian or Hrvatski. My mother and I have prided ourselves on learning a couple of phrases in the language regarding food, daily greetings, and directions. We pride ourselves on it. "Doberdan" means 'good-day.' "Dobertek" means 'Good Eating' or enjoy your meal. And we've found that there's a rather crusty local pastry here called a "Super Dick Man." Yes, you heard it right. A big chocolate covered creamy marshmallow in the shape of a peacock turd called a "Super Dick Man." Back to the story. It's very important not to mince your words.

The father of the family that entered the restaurant began to greet us in Croatian. He threw his arms out as if to embrace the sky and to bless our meal, he continued to talk in fluent and exuberant Croatian as if we were the first people they had seen in many days.
Mom, feeling it her duty to represent our small group and receive their greeting, stepped forward and proudly said, "Dober Dick!"
Cat and I choked on our drinks.
The father looked at mom blankly, completely silenced. His children looking rather frightened by this promiscuous American Woman.
"Dober Dick!" she again said proudly. She still hadn't realized what she had said.
Instead of 'good day' she had said, "Good Dick!"

Mother looked quite dazed and confused when she sat down at our table. The Croatian family had retreated to their table and was avoiding our glances. Cat and I were laughing so hard we were wiping tears from her eyes. "What?" she asked me. "What did I do wrong?"

"Mom, what did you just tell that guy?"

"I told him "Dober Dick!" her face slackened and she slid down in her chair. "Oh my god, oh my god."

"Don't worry mom, it doesn't mean 'Dick!," I laughed.

Since yesterday, she hasn't been able to say "Dober Dan" or "good day" to a single person she's so traumatized by the incident.

She'll never attempt another Slavic language again she tells me.

Tomorrow, we head out on a boat which will travel for twenty-four hours along the length of the Adriatic to Northern Croatian where we'll travel by bus or train to the Alps of Slovenia.

We're ready for a change of scenery and look forward to hiking through the mountains and traveling by sea once again. We'll check out a photography exhibition on the Yugoslavia War this afternoon before heading out for afternoon tea with an American Friend up the Coast.

And yes, we've done many other cultural things besides drinking hot chocolate and laughing at each other at cafes. We've attended a film festival, eaten dinner with a Croatian Family, lingered with a Dalmatian Jewelry Maker, hiked national parks, and avoided large bands of ice-cream laden, gremlin-like children practicing pole dancing on the upper decks of our ferry. But these things are not nearly as much fun as the other stuff.

It's curious what we remember about our travels...

Hope you're all seizing the day and the love of one another and laughing as much as possible!